Violence Is Golden
by Radi Berra
Summary: Sequel to The End? Trapped in the past, can Crono, Lucca, and Marle all learn to live with one another, or will a wide array of seemingly suicidal adventures tear their friendship apart?
1. Cows Go Moo

_Yay! Thirty reviews for "The End?"! Now, just as I promised, I am making a sequel. If you haven't read "The End?" you should read it first. I think the last three chapters of it are my favorite. Anyway, thanks so, so much! _

_I think, due to a few... disagreements... I'm changing the names of two characters. "Marlee" will return to "Marle" and "Chrono" will return to "Crono"._

_Well, here you have it! The first installment of "Violence is Golden". Enjoy!_

**Chapter One: Cows Go "Moo"**

It was early morning. Crono awoke, not to the incredibly harsh sunlight pouring through his window, but from a familiar, yet annoying, sound.

"Mreow?"

Groaning, Crono sat up. The unfamiliar surroundings confused him for a brief moment before he remembered what happened and why he was there in the first place.

"Damn you, Mr. Tinkles..."

The yellow cat purred and rubbed against Crono affectionately.

"Oh no, you don't," Crono snapped, shoving the cat off him. "I'm mad at you. Traitor."

Mr. Tinkles cocked his head and meowed loudly. Scowling, Crono tried to climb out of bed - before a shooting pain jerked him to life.

"Sweet mother of Spekkio!" he moaned. "Lucca, I _swear_, one of these days... You'll get what's coming to you..."

If you remember the ending of the prequel, you'll remember that Crono had been staring at Marle - presumably with not-so-decent thoughts running through his mind. Well, it didn't take Lucca the Great very long to spot his expression, and she opened her Great Mouth and blabbered to Marle that Crono liked her bottom.

Needless to say, Marle was not as amused. Crono was certainly not walking upright after she was finished beating the snot out of him.

With that incident of the previous day still fresh in his mind, Crono managed (after much trial) to clamber out of bed. His cat, whom he had once loved so dearly, trotted after him innocently.

Upon reaching the dining area, Crono saw a groggy (and clearly upset) Marle poking her breakfast with a dubious expression on her face. Lucca was nowhere in sight (much to Crono's relief - he was certain that murder wasn't taken lightly in the Middle Ages).

"Morning," he grunted, pulling a bowl and a pot of some unidentifiable substance in a pot toward him.

Marle ignored him, and continued prodding her breakfast.

"Oh, come on," Crono said with a slight grin. "You're not mad at me still, are you?"

No response.

"It's that male hormone thing," Crono went on. "You see, guys are automatically attracted to butts. Unless it belongs to a really ugly person. But that's not the point. See, it's actually a compliment-"

His sentence was cut short when a blob of Marle's breakfast hit him straight in the face.

Lucca walked in just then, and brightened immediately when she saw Crono's face dripping with the stuff. "Wow!" she laughed. "Maybe I'll like this place after all!"

"YOU shut up," Crono snapped, rubbing the food out of his eyes.

A shadow of a grin flitted across Marle's face as she stood up. "I'm going to find some edible food in this castle," she declared, leaving.

Lucca plopped down in Marle's newly vacated seat. "She likes you."

Crono rolled his eyes. "What was your first clue, the catapulted gruel or the silent treatment?"

"Gruel?" Lucca pondered. "Is that what this is?"

Crono took a big bite of it. "Tastes better than that fungus pie I found at your house. Hey, you think I could have sold the fungus? Then again, I might have gotten caught... The guards might have arrested me for illegal substances. Maybe it's best I got rid of the evidence."

Lucca's response was a simple sweep of the hand - straight into the back of Crono's head.

Crono choked on his gruel. Lucca merely smiled. "My hand slipped."

Crono kicked her. "My foot slipped, too," he managed to choke out, bits of gruel flying out of his mouth and landing on Lucca's shirt.

Lucca winced slightly, then grinned again. "You're such a gentleman. Well, when you're finished eating, Frog wants to see us at Zenan Bridge for some reason he wouldn't discuss."

"I hope it's to have you assassinated," Crono muttered under his breath.

Lucca smacked him again, and left.

"Well, that wasn't very nice!" Crono called after her. "You left your gruel uneaten!"

-XXX-

"Thou art here to enlist in the army of the honorable Queen Leene and King Guardia," Frog began.

Crono raised his hand.

Frog sighed. "What is it now?"

"Exactly who are we supposed to be warring with?" Crono asked loudly. "Isn't this a time of peace?"

"Yes," Frog said.

"Then why do we need an army?" Crono inquired.

Frog rolled his eyes. "Thine ignorance is appalling."

"I've been telling him that for years," Lucca piped up. "He doesn't seem to get it."

"Maybe it's because your exact words were 'your benightedness is excessively harrowing'," Crono snapped. "Not all of us happen to be word wizards. Plus, is benightedness even a word? You made that word up, didn't you?"

Marle hit him in the back of the head.

"Thank you," Lucca said.

"As I was saying," Frog interrupted, "the army I am assembling is for the sole purpose of protection - in the instance this castle is attacked."

"But the chances of this castle being attacked are slim, right?" Crono said loudly.

"Oh, shut up," Lucca snarled. "Your benightedness is excessively harrowing."

"See?"

"In response to thine inquiry, Crono, yes, the chances are most minute. But one must not underestimate his enemies," Frog said.

After this conversation continued to go downhill at an impeccably quick rate, Frog gave up and sent the trio back to the castle, insisting that they needed to practice humility before they could succeed at anything in life.

"But we killed Lavos!" Crono hollered as Lucca and Marle dragged him by his arms. "Doesn't that count for anything?"

"Apparently not," Marle said through gritted teeth.

They stopped by the market to buy some food, and passed by a farm right near the Guardia forest.

"Never saw that farm before," Crono commented. "And that's one big dog!"

Lucca rolled her eyes again. "That's a cow, you idiot."

"You sure?" Crono asked, squinting at it. "I thought cows were black and white, not brown."

"Just because they always show black and white cows in picture books doesn't mean they're all black and white," Lucca said through gritted teeth. "And do you even know what sound cows make?"

"Cows go 'moo'," Crono said, apparently pleased with himself. And to agree with Crono's remark, the cow mooed.

"Yeah. Dogs bark. That animal just mooed. Therefore, it must be..." Lucca paused.

Crono thought for a few seconds. "A... cow?"

"THERE you go," Lucca said. "And that's it - this conversation is officially_ over_."

-XXX-

Leene waited impatiently. Frog had estimated that the trio would be back very shortly, and yet, they weren't. She had a dangerous mission for them, and it needed to be done right away, or the kingdom's alliance with Porre would be terminated. Which would, undoubtedly, suck.

So you can imagine her eagerness to shove them back out the front door when they finally arrived around mid-afternoon.

"Hello, how are things? Great, really great. Listen, can you go to Porre and give this extremely important piece of paper to the extremely important mayor? It would be absolutely _marvelous_ if you could do that for me. Thank you!"

Beaming, she thrust a piece of paper into Crono's chest and shut the door to the throne room in their faces.

Crono stared at the ground for a moment, then turned to Marle. "Am I the only one that has no idea what she just told us to do?"

Marle shook her head. "All I heard was 'important' and 'Porre', so I'm assuming we're some kind of messengers?"

Lucca nodded. "That's what I gathered from it. Well, I guess we should hurry, then. There's an opera later tonight, and I don't want to miss it."

Crono snickered. "You like operas? Lucca, how come I never knew that about you?"

"You never asked," Lucca said coolly. "Just like I never asked what your cat's name was."

"We can leave that animal out of this," Crono scowled.

Marle sighed as Lucca and Crono continued their bickering all the way to Porre.

_Guess I'll have to learn to live with them... and maybe I can... get Crono to like, _like_ me? I like him, but does he like me? Was he serious when he said guys stare at butts on impulse? Or does he LIKE me? Grah... Men are so hard to understand..._

-XXX-

They reached Porre about a day later, having spent the night at an inn. As soon as they saw the town, they realized why Leene had wanted them to get there so quickly.

"Holy chocolate fudgemuffins!" Crono exclaimed upon sight of the small town.

Oh, yes. They did.

---

_Well, there you go! First chapter! I hope you enjoyed, and PLEASE leave a review! I would be extremely grateful!_

_-Ladyvella42_


	2. Crono: Kamikazeman

Yo. My el brilliante excuse for the delay this time is that I went to Washington D.C. That, and pre-calculus. Whoever thought up partial fraction decomposition needs to be dug out of the ground, shot, decapitated, have their head stuck on a pole, pole paraded around the country while their body is dumped in a trash pit and urinated upon. Several times. In succession. And then all pre-calculus books burned, Fahrenheit 451 style.

Anyway, please enjoy chapter two of Violence is Golden!

_**Chapter 2: Crono: Kamikaze-man**_

"This is bad," Marle said, paling as she stared at the burning village.

"No kidding!" Crono said in horror. "That sword was just stolen from the weaponry! Where are the guards in this town?"

"CRONO!" Lucca yelled. "TOWN! BURNING!"

"Oh yeah."

Marle cast Ice all over to help put out the flames, but the town was now burning at an increasingly quick rate. "Help me!" she cried.

Lucca flung her arms. "How? I'm a fire user, remember? And Crono'll just end up blowing the place up or something!"

An old man hobbled up next to them. "Queen Leene sent you, correct?" he asked desperately.

"Yep," Crono said grumpily.

The old man tthrusta key into Crono's hand. "Listen carefully. You need to go to the dam nearby, and use the key to release a steady stream of water. Not too much, or you'll flood the whole town, but enough to douse the flames. Quick! Before the flames wipe us out!" He hobbled off before Crono could protest.

Crono turned to Lucca and Marle. "Is it just me, or do people think I have 'kamikaze' written all over my face?"

Lucca was already running toward the dam. "Not now!"

Reluctantly, Crono followed her. Marle called out after them. "I'll stay here and keep the flames from going haywire! Hurry!"

The two sprinted toward the dam, and Crono shoved the door to the dam building open.

"Where do we put the key?" he demanded, staring around.

Lucca frowned. "Wait a second..."

Crono groaned. "Don't tell me."

"What, that this key is a fake, the dam is crank operated from the _outside _of the building, and we've just fallen into a very elaborate trap?" Lucca said dryly.

"Something like that, yeah."

The door slammed shut, and they could hear laughter outside. "What dolts! How could they not have realized that the key was fake and that the dam is crank operated? From the _outside _of the building? Hahahah! They totally just fell into our elaborate trap!" Two other men joined in the laughter.

"They're key-operated four hundred years from now," Lucca muttered.

They heard the men leaving, and tried to push the door open.

It didn't budge.

"CCrap-fuck" Crono muttered.

Lucca gave him a weird look. "You worry me sometimes."

"Yeah, well, I'm allowed to be resentful, thank you."

Lucca plopped on the ground. "I wonder how Marle's doing..."

Crono sat next to her. "I'm sure she's fine. She's definitely a feisty one, I'll give her that."

Lucca sighed. "I hope they don't get her, too... We need to get out of here."

"Really? No, I thought that spending the rest of my life here was ideal." He then went into a spontaneous rant about Marle.

Lucca ignored him, as usual, and glanced around the tiny room. She knew that burning their way out wouldn't help, the room seemed to have magic-deflecting walls...

"They definitely planned this out well..." she mused.

"I wanted to ask her out on a date," Crono went on, not noticing that Lucca wasn't paying even the slightest bit of attention to him. "You know? A romantic moonlight walk on the beach... after a nice dinner..."

"Hold that thought," Lucca said suddenly. "Crono, you up for a suicide mission?"

"And I really wanted-" Crono stopped. "I'm sorry? Did you just say suicide?"

Lucca grabbed his arm and dragged him toward a rug in the middle of the room.

"If my theory is correct, there will be a trap door under this rug," Lucca said. "We should, assuming there IS a passage, figure out where it leads. However, since this is a rather primitive community, we could just be walking into an even larger bout of suicide."

"Suicide?"

"Yes, Crono. Suicide. Come on."

Holding her breath, Lucca ripped the rug bag, revealing a small trap door in the ground.

"Ha. Bingo." She turned to look at Crono. "You first."

"WHAT? Why?"

Lucca grinned. "Well, your new superhero name is Kamikaze-man. Kamikaze-man's job is to protect the ladies. Now, if you walk into a screaming metal deathtrap, I'll find my own way out, and you'll be remembered as the greatest kamikaze-performing man ever, who saved Lucca the Great from a gruesomely painful death."

Crono whimpered. "I hate you so very much..."

He opened the trap door and peered down. "Can't see the bottom... Oh well, might as well." He got himself ready to jump. "If I don't survive... tell Marle... that... I love her."

He jumped.

-xXx-

Marle, meanwhile, had found herself in a bit of a situation. Three men had begun chasing her, the town had mysteriously stopped burning, and Lucca and Crono had been gone for more than half an hour. She had finally found a hiding spot, but it wouldn't last long.

The three men had suddenly multiplied to fifteen.

_Come on, Marle... _she thought desperately. _You've gotta find out just what the hell is going on here... Who are these people? Why do they want you? Where are Crono and Lucca?_

_Are they still alive?_

"No sign of the girl, sir," a nearby voice grunted.

"She's here somewhere," another voice snapped. "And you better hurry the hell up, the dam's set to blow in twenty minutes."

_Oh no._

"Are the other two still there?"

"I'll check, sir."

"Good, because if you screw this one up, you're finished."

"Yes sir."

Marle waited until the footsteps had subsided before moving.

_I've got to get to the dam..._

-xXx-

Crono's eyes opened slowly. All he could see was darkness.

_Night..._

_Sleep..._

Crono's eyes started to close again.

_Crono..._

Not now. Not ever. The sleep... ah, yes. It felt nice.

_Crono!_

The voice... where was it coming from? Was that a choked voice? Angry?

"No. I'm sleeping..." Crono grunted, his eyes closed.

_Goddammit, Crono! CRONO!_

Crono's eyes opened again. "...Lucca?"

"CRONO! WHY THE HELL AREN'T YOU ANSWERING?"

"Lucca..." Crono said, louder this time.

"Crono? You're alive?"

"Um... maybe... is this a dream?"

Lucca's voice laughed weakly. "I don't think so. Hey, I'm going to light up the tunnel from up here. Tell me if you can see the rope I'm going to lower, okay?"

"How are you going to light it up without burning the rope?

"I thought I heard you hit something on the way down. I think it was a torch bracket. I'm going to try to light it up, then I'll lower the rope. Stand back."

True to her hypothesis, there was a bracket about ten feet over Crono's head, and it lit up immediately. Peering up, Crono could see the dim outline of Lucca. "It's about a thirty feet drop. I don't think the rope is quite that long."

"That's fine. Think you can catch me when I run out of rope?"

Crono rubbed his aching head. "If you have a tonic, I'll do it."

"Coming down, then."

-xXx-

Thud, thud.

Marle ducked down.

Thud thud.

The men were right behind her...

Thud, thud. Thud th-

The thudding stopped.

"...Where is she?"

Marle huddled behind a bush. _If there's any hope for Lucca and Crono... I have to get to that lodge... _

She had reached the dam, but there were ten armed men guarding the small lodge. Clearly, they didn't want anyone in...

Or out.

"We lost her, sir."

There was a slight pause before the leader started screaming.

"AGAIN? We had orders to destroy the ambassadors from Guardia castle! Two are ready, but in five minutes, this dam is finished! We can't let any of them survive!"

_What? Who the hell are these people? Why do they want us dead?_

"Sir, she looked remarkably like the queen."

The leader turned. "What?"

"The queen, sir. We think she's the queen."

A smile played around the leader's mouth. "Really, now. Hmm... Heh." He chuckled. "Alright. Blow the dam. We should keep the queen alive... She'll be useful."

Marle froze. _No..._

There was a resounding explosion, and the dam blew up...

**-xxxTo be continuedxxx-**

Well, there you have it! Chapter two! A little less humorous than I'm used to writing, but nonetheless, I thought it wasn't bad.

I am evil. Mwahahaha.

Drop a review, or else!


	3. Queen Marle

Yay, update! Aren't you just so proud of me... No. I do not own CT. Obviously. If I did, there would have been a REAL sequel. Chrono Cross is great and all, but it's just _not a good Chrono Trigger sequel_... If it's even classified as a sequel at all. Anyway, here's chapter three! Enjoy!

_**Chapter Three: Queen Marle**_

Marle watched as the dam exploded, sending waves of water hurtling toward the village and leaving a twenty-foot hole in the ground. She knew Crono and Lucca were... were... She couldn't think about it. She was in such shock that she didn't hear the men come up behind her until it was too late.

"Hello, Queen Leene."

She barely had time to register the name before she was knocked out.

_Two hours later..._

"Ugh..." Marle groaned, trying to move. Great. Tied down. All evil villains tie their victims down, huh?

"Awake yet, my Liege?"

"I should kill you."

"Should. But I doubt you will."

"Why'd you kill them?"

The man chuckled, and came closer, close enough that Marle could see him, but far enough away so that she couldn't touch him. His gray eyes glistened, and he pushed his long brown hair out of the way. "I bet you know already."

"I thought we'd killed you already."

"We?" The man's eyes widened. "Surely - no... You're not the queen!"

"Acute observation," Marle spat, struggling against the ropes. "Any reason you're after the queen?"

The man smiled. "Of course. However, she should have come herself... shouldn't have sent ambassadors..." he scowled.

"Privileges of being Queen. I'll ask you again. Why?"

"Same reason as last time."

Marle's eyes widened. "Oh no..."

-XXX-

_"No, you fool. The twelve signs of the Zodiac are not all fish. You are a failure at life. If you make it past the age of twenty, I'll kill myself."_

_---_

_"No! No, the answer is not magnesium chromate! It's four! FOUR! Why the hell won't you _listen_?"_

_---_

_"What? No, it's a HORSE, not a UNICORN! You stupid, stupid boy..."_

_---_

_"No! You suck at basketball! Run another four laps! Oh, I don't care that you've already run twelve! That's what you get for conducting chemical experiments instead of worrying about being physically fit, huh?"_

_---_

Slowly, groggily, Lucca opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was... Wait, where was Crono?

Staggering to an upright position, Lucca produced a flimsy ball of fire which she used to let herself see more than two inches in front of her. The tunnel, or whatever it was, was caved in, and she was standing in what seemed like two inches of water.

"Crono?"

She heard a soft moaning coming from her right, and she saw Crono - badly injured.

"Oh, sweet Spekkio."

She groped around in the darkness for a moment before her hands touched something solid - apparently a wall. She used the wall to keep herself upright as she cautiously bent over Crono, whose head was partly submerged in the water.

"Hey. You alright?"

Crono stirred slightly. "No... I told you already. I thought the Zodiac had a unicorn in it. Why won't you listen to me?"

Frowning, Lucca poked him, hoping that she didn't poke something that was bruised or broken.

"SWEET JESUS!"

Oops.

"Sorry," Lucca said quickly as Crono whimpered. "I... um... you were muttering weird stuff. About a unicorn."

"Wha- oh. Oh, that. Astronomy class. Horrible nightmare." Crono struggled to sit up. "My freaking head... I feel like I was in the middle of an explosion..."

Lucca peered around her - at the low ceiling, the crumbled rocks, the smell...

"I think we were."

Crono looked around as well. "Why? Why would they blow the dam up?"

Lucca shrugged her good shoulder. "I have no idea. We should probably focus on getting out of here, though..."

"How?"

She shook her head. I'm not sure. It looks like it was completely caved in during the blast. We could very well be trapped under all this... until we die."

Crono bit his lip. "Don't worry, we'll escape... Let's just plan this out."

Lucca sniffled. "Okay. You're right. We're not finished unless we give up. Any ideas?"

Crono grinned. "As a matter of fact, yes."

-XXX-

Marle sat in a small, dark room. She wasn't sure how she would play into the plan to overthrow the kingdom, but she had a feeling it wasn't going to be very pleasant.

She fingered her pendant slowly, tracing the deeply colored jewel in the middle.

_My pendant! May I have it back?_

Crono...

_My name's Marle, what's yours? ...Crono? That's a nice name. Nice to meet you, Crono!_

Lucca...

_I would trade my royal ancestry for your genius in a heartbeat!_

The pendant glowed softly, bathing her in a warm light.

"You're alive..." she whispered.

-XXX-

"This looks wrong."

"Shut up and get ready."

"I still say your idea is crazy. You're crazy."

"You get the plan?"

"Yep."

"Ready?"

"Nope."

"Go!"

Crono used the remainder of his magic to cast the strongest Luminare that he could manage, praying it would break the rocks above them so they could clamber out of the debris. Lucca was clutching him tightly, casting Protest so they wouldn't get damaged...

"OW! MY EFFING FOOT!"

...as much.

Finally, Crono's plan proved to be successful. They were out of the pit.

"Damn."

"That was a lousy pun, Lucca."

Lucca's statement, however lousy a pun as it may have been, was nonetheless accurate. The wall of the dam had been blown up in the blast, and the water was almost completely gone - probably toward the village.

"Leene is going to kill us, Crono."

"Yeah, it sure looks that way."

Crono stood up shakily. "Wow. Let's never have this much excitement in one day again."

"Agreed," Lucca said, also staggering to her feet. "It's not fun when you're almost killed twice in one day."

"Twice?" Crono looked puzzled.

"Yeah. When the dam exploded and when you tried to 'be the hero' and get us out."

"Would you rather be trapped still?"

"Not really."

"Good, now stop complaining."

"What now?"

Crono thought for a moment. "Marle."

Lucca nodded. "Problem is, we don't know where she is."

Crono didn't have the faintest inkling where Marle might be. But as he looked at the ground and saw fresh footprints leading away from the destruction, he started to piece it together.

"Recognize this?" Grinning, Crono held up a hair pin that he'd spotted.

Lucca grinned, too. "Awesome. Let's follow the footprints!"

-XXX-

"Well, well, well."

Marle awoke. "Go away."

The man smirked. "We're ready to begin our quest to take over the castle, dear."

"And how are you planning on doing that?" Marle demanded.

"Well, I'll explain it in simple terms." The man grabbed her arm and yanked her roughly to her feet, dragging her out of her holding cell. "You look like the queen. In fact, you're the same girl that they mistook as the queen not too long ago. The castle guards will mistake you as the queen. You will pretend that the castle has a traitor that has been posing as the queen. It will confuse the guards. They, in their confusion, will destroy each other, and I will take over the castle. Pretty ingenious, eh?"

Marle snorted. "Hardly. The chances that the guards will mistake me for Leene again are fairly slim; they know who I am. You're a terrible villain."

The man scowled. "Fine. I'll just kill you then, and take the castle by force."

He pulled out a long, curved knife and held it to her throat. "And with no friends by your side, death is inevitable."

---

_Alright, there you have it! Chapter 3! Not too great, I apologize. I feel that it was slightly if not very rushed. But please review anyway. Or I'll kill you. Ha. _

_Next chapter... Will Marle meet an early death, or will Crono and Lucca find her first? Just who is the man trying to kill them? And... is that Mr. Tinkles? Keep reading!_


	4. Mr Tinkles to the Rescue!

_Thanks for all your kicking reviews. I love hearing from you guys. I do not own _Chrono Trigger_... geez, disclaimers suck. I swear, they remind me too much of what I would love to own but don't. As if I wasn't painfully aware that I didn't own _Chrono Trigger_... Anyway, chapter four. Funnier than the last (mayhaps), as well as longer (mayhaps). Enjoy. Please. Or I'll cry. T-T_

_**Chapter 4: Mr. Tinkles to the Rescue!**_

Crono and Lucca had followed the footsteps to the cathedral, unaware of who - or what - awaited them. By that time, it was well past sunset, and the sky was dark; there was no moon.

"Wonderful," Crono muttered. "This place gives me the heebie-jeebies. Add in the dark night and some witches and you got a perfect night for devil worshipping."

Lucca opened her mouth to respond before she was interrupted by a loud meow. Looking down, she saw that Crono was right - it was the devil's night. Or, to be more precise, Mr. Tinkle's night.

"You!" Crono snapped. "Go away. Shoo. I'm still mad at you, remember?"

Mr. Tinkles cocked its head at Crono and let off a louder meow.

"Apparently not," Lucca commented. "Let's just go inside... Get it over with... We might still make it back before breakfast."

Crono muttered something else about suicide and followed Lucca inside. Neither of them noticed Mr. Tinkles follow them inside.

The cathedral hadn't changed. There was no sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows - rather, the cathedral was eerily depressing. The darkness was overwhelming. Lucca finally produced a small ball of fire to help them see, and the fire was nearly swallowed by the darkness. It gave them a dim view of the room, nonetheless, yet the view was uninviting. The pews were still carefully lined up, the organ sat in the corner. However, the pews were dusty, the organ was not.

"We're definitely in the right place." Lucca's voice sounded unnaturally soft in the deadly silence.

"Yeah," Crono said, his voice oddly shrill.

Lucca carefully approached the organ and tentatively pressed a few keys before finding the one that unlocked the secret door.

"Mystics?" Crono said quietly as they fumbled around in the dark, searching in the dim light for the door. "They were behind Leene's kidnapping... did they mistake Marle for Leene again?"

"I don't think so..." Lucca said slowly. "I think... they _knew_ who they were kidnapping." Her fingers ran over a wooden surface. "Found it... let's go."

They pushed the door open and entered the brightly lit corridor.

-XXX-

The knife inched closer to Marle's throat.

"Wait!" she said desperately. "Wait... Please."

The man stopped the knife. "What do you want?"

"All great evil villains grant last requests." It was a desperate move, Marle knew. Maybe he'd be one of the stupid villains that _did _grant last requests. "You want to be known as a _great_ evil villain, right?"

The man paused, and held the knife up to his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. You're right. Why settle for being a _normal_ evil villain when I can be a _great _evil villain? Alright, what do you want?"

Phew. "Um, well, I'd like to tell you a joke. You know, for your own entertainment before you brutally murder me."

"Sounds harmless enough," the man said with a shrug.

Marle cleared her throat. "Well, there was this man. He owned a dog. This dog was the ugliest dog ever, right? So the man entered him in the neighborhood Ugliest Dog Ever contest. The first judge said 'Wow, that is such an ugly dog!' and the second judge said 'Yes! I agree!' and the third judge said 'First place!' So the man got first place. Then he entered the community's Ugliest Dog Ever contest..."

-XXX-

"Dodge it, you idiot!" Lucca yelled, narrowly having her head chopped off by a Naga-ette.

"Yeah, easy for you to say!" Crono retaliated, cleanly taking out two Diablo and a Naga-ette with his sword.

The two had encountered no difficulty getting through most of the passageways, until they reached the back room. As soon as they were within fifty yards of the door, they were attacked by various Mystics. Most of which were pathetically weak, unsurprisingly.

"Oh, for the love of Pete..."

Lucca finally got irritated, and ended up blasting everything within a twenty yard radius with her Napalm, which was bad news for poor Crono, who was scared out of his wits and almost decapitated himself in shock.

"Sweet penguin god!" Crono yelped, stopping the sword just in time. "What the hell was that?"

"Napalm," Lucca commented. "Nature's toothpaste." She smirked, and gestured at the dead (and dismembered) Mystics scattered throughout the room.

Crono shuddered, then glanced at the unguarded door. "Alright, let's go see what's behind that door..."

The two sprinted toward the door, and shoved it open.

"Then he entered the Intergalactic Ugliest Dog Ever contest," Marle was saying to a glossy-eyed man holding a knife.

"Marle!" Crono exclaimed. "You're alive!"

Marle looked up, and her jaw dropped. "_You're_ alive! I thought that - you - the dam blew up-"

"Alright!" the man yelled, losing his patience. "I hate to break up the happy reunion, but it's time to die... for _you_."

Crono whipped out his sword. "I don't think so, bubba. That's my girl you have there, and I'm not leaving unless she's in my arms."

Lucca rolled her eyes. "Alright, let's just kill him."

The man held up his arms. "I don't think so... Remember me?"

He began to change. He grew larger, fatter, uglier... Soon, he was towering over Marle's would-be rescuers.

"Yakra."

Yakra laughed. "You remembered me! Well, I'm impressed. I haven't forgotten _you_."

"How are you still alive?" Crono demanded. "We killed you, remember?"

Yakra laughed again. "I'm a Mystic - we don't die easily. You defeated me. You didn't kill me. It's actually this really complicated thing that no human could _ever_ comprehend."

"Yeah, well, screw the complicatedness," Crono growled, lunging at Yakra. "_I'm going kung-fu on your ass_."

With an effortless flick of his claw, Yakra intercepted the blow. "I'm stronger now, Leene's warriors."

Lucca cringed, and glanced at Crono. _Keep him busy, _she mouthed. _I've got a plan_.

Of course, Crono didn't like where that was going. And after Yakra sent him flying across the room, who could blame him?

Lucca slipped over to Marle and cut the ropes that were binding her. "We gotta help him," Lucca mumbled, giving in to Crono's moans of "Sweet zombie Jesus, not there- Aaaaugh! Mommy said not to touch that! Ow! That hurts! Stop it, for the love of God, _stop_!"

Marle nodded, and was about to cast Cure on Crono... until she saw a small yellow figure in the doorway.

The yellow thing flew through the air, landing on Crono's head. Naturally, this scared the living bajeezus out of Crono.

"Monkey sweet potato!" Crono shrieked, batting at his head with newfound strength. "My hair!"

Yakra laughed. "What is that thing? Is it here to save you, human?"

"God, I hope not," Lucca muttered. "This unexpected visitor certainly ruined my plan."

Mr. Tinkles hissed at Yakra, jumped off Crono's head, and landed on Yakra's back.

"What the-"

Sneakily, Mr. Tinkles bounded across Yakra until he reached Yakra's eyes, which happened to become Mr. Tinkles's scratching post.

"Get this demon creature off me!" Yakra shrieked. "It's blinding me!"

"Now would be a good time, Crono!" Lucca yelled. "Finish him!"

Crono then proceeded to pull off an extremely OOC move that defeated Yakra, they all headed back to the castle where Lucca was struck with a brilliant idea, and she created a time machine, which they used to go back to their own time. Crono then proceeded to marry Marle and the two of them ruled happily and had ten children. Boo-ya.

"Crono!" Lucca yelled, snapping Crono out of his fantasy world. "Are you just going to stand there, or do _I_ have to finish this?"

"You know, it wouldn't _kill_ you to be _helpful_ for once," Crono muttered.

"Actually, it might."

Grumbling, Crono sliced through what might have been Yakra's head.

"Blargh. I am dead," Yakra said before he fell to the floor, some disgusting green liquid gushing out of his fatal wound. Crono let out a tired sigh and sheathed his sword. With a forced grin, he looked at Marle. "Stop getting kidnapped."

Marle smiled. "I'll try."

Lucca waited as the two of them stared at each other. "Kiss already!" she yelled, finally losing her patience.

Crono strode across the floor, grabbed Marle, held her at arms' length, and kissed her passionately. Well, as passionately as Crono knew how, anyway.

Finally, he broke the kiss, and stared at her. "I love you."

Marle was speechless. She merely swayed on the spot and blinked. Even Mr. Tinkles seemed surprised. Surprised enough to plant himself back on Crono's head, anyway.

Ah, but Crono was pleased, and not even annoyed at his cat. His goal of the week had been accomplished. Kill the most badass monster in town, and make out with the hottest chick nearby. And that chick happened to be Marle. Of course, he liked her and stuff. Yeah. Alot. _Alot_ alot.

"Let's go home," Crono said, beaming, pointing to the door. "I'm rather hungry, aren't you?" He walked out, smirking, not noticing the two girls' incredulous glances. _There aren't enough O's in 'smooth' to describe how smooth I am, _he thought smugly, reaching up and patting Mr. Tinkles on the head.

Shaking her head, Lucca followed him. Marle remained speechless for a few seconds longer, and finally walked along behind Lucca.

_I love you, too, Crono._

-XXX-

Queen Leene listened to the report that Lucca was giving, with an increasingly grumpy look on her face. One simple mission, and they turned it from a friendly meeting into a suicidal disaster. _How_ the _hell _did they do it?

"...And then, after narrowly escaping _that_ mess alive, we found footprints. We followed them to the cathedral, where we pulled off an astoundingly heroic rescue feat, killing Yakra, who had magically come back to life by means beyond our mortal comprehension, and rescuing Marle-"

"Allow me to interrupt," Leene interrupted. "The mission was not, contrary to what you believe, a rescue mission. It was a simple mission where you were to give _this letter_-" Leene pulled out a letter "-to the mayor of the town."

"Wait, we were supposed to give him _that_ letter?" Lucca said, confused. "Why do you have it?"

Leene shook her head. "You'd already left by the time I was _going_ to give it to you."

"Biscuitmongers," Crono muttered. "So, that suicide mission was for nothing?"

"Yes, it would appear so," Leene said with a disgruntled look.

"Biscuitmongers," Crono muttered again.

Leene tossed the letter on the floor. "Well, it appears that there is nothing further we can do about it. You look like you were digging in the mud for four days straight, so I respectfully command you to go and get cleaned. And rest."

Crono shrugged. "Sounds good to me."

The three of them bowed and walked out of the throne room, where Leene sat shaking her head. _And they used to be fairly normal people... Why are they so... odd? Especially Sir Crono. And why was his cat on his head? I think I'll outlaw cats..._

-XXX-

Crono stared at the ceiling late that night. He couldn't sleep. All he could think about was Marle, and the romantic walk by the river... and the candlelight dinner... the things he wanted, but didn't have.

"Mreow?" Mr. Tinkles meowed loudly, and rubbed Crono's leg.

"Well, I s'pose I owe you an apology," Crono grunted, picking him up and rubbing him behind his ears. "If it wasn't for you, Yakra could have torn me into shredded beef..."

Mr. Tinkles purred, and Crono swore that the cat was drooling at the notion of shredded beef. Resignedly, Crono got up and led Mr. Tinkles down three sets of stairs to the empty and dark kitchen to find the cat some food. Upon entrance to the kitchen, Mr. Tinkles hopped out of Crono's arms and trotted over to a corner, sniffing. Pleased, Mr. Tinkles picked up the dead mouse that was in the corner in his mouth, trotted back to Crono, and dumped the mouse at Crono's feet, purring.

Shuddering, Crono pointed at the supply cabinet. "Let's see if there's any meat that is _edible_, eh? Not Academy lunch material?"

Mr. Tinkles cocked his head slightly and dug into the dead mouse's flesh.

Opening the first cabinet, Crono realized that it was stocked with wine. He began to close it, but then was struck with a brilliant idea.

-XXX-

The knock on her door at midnight startled Marle. At first, she considered blasting the caller with an Ice attack, decided she was too tired, and proceeded to open the door.

"Cr-"

The word had barely formed on Marle's lips before Crono grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room.

"Hey, where are we going?" Marle demanded in indignation.

Crono smiled. "Out."

"Wow, if you were any more vague, I might just think I was being kidnapped again," Marle scowled. Then she noticed something. "Crono, what are you _wearing_? And is that... _wine_?"

Crono grinned. "I'm wearing clothes. And yes." He led her by the arm, and they walked for a while - through the forest, past the cathedral... For a while, all they did was talk. They talked about random things, like stupid stuff they did as children (apparently, Crono had once drowned the classroom pet - _accidently_, he claimed), and not so random things, such as their adventures through time. After a long while of talking, Marle noticed that Crono had led them to Zenan Bridge.

"Why are we here?" Marle asked, confused.

"I, um, well..."

Nervously, Crono shuffled his feet. "Marle..."

Marle's heart pounded rapidly. "Yes?"

"Will, um, will... you... erm... yeah, I'm bad at this..."

He took a deep breath, held out his hands, and gripped hers. "Wihyuhmaymeh?"

She was stunned for a moment. "Will I _maim_ you? 'Cause I would have done that at the castle... you know, where I could have gone back to bed in about five minutes?"

He laughed weakly. "Um, no...I'll try again. Er - will you... _marry_ me?"

-XXX-

_Bah. I knew it would happen. I absolutely _knew_ I'd be sucked into this. Why can't I just make the whole fic humorous? No, I have to make it all sappy and crappy... It's all because I was listening to the Schala's Theme music on VGMusic... Blame it... -curses obscenely- No, I'll go back to entertaining soon, I swear. I'll be able to write a couple chapters next week (if I get lots of reviews, hint hint), but until then, I've got finals... And no one wants me to fail the finals, right? No, that would suck. I'll shut up and go do my precalculus (que es mierda) now. Review. Or I'll... -is running out of threats- cut off your arms and legs with a chainsaw. Brownie points go to whomever knows where I got that threat. Adios, amigos. Hasta luego. _


	5. Greetings, Death Machine

_May as well write a new chapter before I get sucked into Christmas break. Which will, inevitably, happen. So. Oh, yes. the threat is from Weird Al. God, people. I feel sad that you've never heard of a little something called "Albuquerque."_

_Dislaimer: If you think I own it, you're ugly _and_ stupid. _

_**Chapter 5: Greetings, Death Machine**_

"Mreow?"

Lucca moaned in her sleep. "Get the hell away from me, Crono. And if you put honey on my face again, I'll murder you."

Mr. Tinkles nudged Lucca with his wet nose. "MREOW!"

Lucca jerked up. "What the- how the hell did you get into my room!"

Mr. Tinkles purred and rubbed her kneecap. "Mrrrrrrr..."

Sighing, Lucca clambered out of bed and staggered to the window for no apparent reason. Staring at the pink and gold sky was peaceful... peaceful... peace-

"I've got it."

-XXX-

Giggling giddily, Marle and Crono staggered through the streets of Truce Village, each holding the other for support. Curious villagers watched the two underage drunks as Crono slurred out hellos to random people while waving the empty wine bottle.

"Hhhhhiiii." Grinning widely, Crono waved at a flagpole. "You... you is 'kinny. Yessssss you's is." He laughed boisterously. "Wha's yous sercert?" he added in a not-so-quiet whisper.

The flagpole, naturally, didn't respond. Crono took this as a personal offense, and threw the bottle at it. "'ake dat, ashoss..."

Finally, the villagers became worried that this drunk might endanger them all, and called for the village guards, who arrived quickly and pulled out swords.

"Young man, put the basket down," the lead guard warned. "We don't want any trouble."

Crono squinted at a bush about three feet away from the man. "Huh? Who's you's alls?"

"Are you... are you _drunk_, sir?"

Marle giggled. "He's thinkses we's drunk, Carl."

Crono waved the basket around, whamming an innocent bystander in the crotch. "No, occifer... I's swears to drunk I'm not god. Sobuh as dunk munckahs, we's is."

The guard cringed, and looked at his officers for assistance. One officer shrugged, and held out some extremely heavy looking chains. The guard nodded, and slapped them onto the wrists of the drunk teens. "Alright, we're going to court. Ah, hell, did I say court? I meant... the dungeons."

"Dare's wahn ad dis 'dungon', raht?" Marle slurred, her hands waving around erratically.

The guard shook his head. "I have no idea what the hell you're trying to say."

-XXX-

"Your majesty, we have... found... two young drunkards in the village," the guard said, bowing. "Your requests?"

Queen Leene sighed. Her husband usually took care of these matters, since they were so utterly stupid. Of course, he happened to be gone that day. Stupid meetings. Stupid Mystics.

Lucca came down the stairs just to hear the queen request the names of the two teenage drunks.

"Crono. And Marle."

_That would explain why the cat was in my room, _Lucca thought, rolling her eyes. _And it would also explain why neither of them was at breakfast. Not to mention the lack of screaming._

"Sir Crono and Lady Marle were drunk?" Leene asked, raising an eyebrow. "You sure?"

The guard's eyes widened. "Very much so. In fact, Sir Crono nearly took my head off with a shattered glass wine bottle. And Lady Marle ran into a wall and passed out. Both of them had been slurring their words, and neither could stand straight. Not to mention the fact that Sir Crono was carrying on a conversation with a _tree_ on the way here."

"He's fairly unstable," Leene pointed out. "He named his cat 'Mr. Tinkles'. Whose name he copy wrote, I'll have you know."

"The tree _ate_ Lady Marle, apparently."

"Hell, screw the dungeons," Leene said, widening her eyes. "Put him in a psychiatric center."

Lucca sighed. "Your majesty, I... er... would like to request that he come with me."

Leene looked at Lucca. "He's nuts! He was talking to a goddamn TREE!"

"I'm sure it's merely the side effects of the alcohol, ma'am. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened, I'll tell you."

"Listen to your heeeeeeaaaaart!" a voice was singing loudly from outside the throne room. "Before you tell him good-byyyyyyye!"

Leene gave Lucca an odd look. "He's not drunk now, I assure you."

"Yeah, well... Still. If you allow him to come with me, I'll get him off your hands as quickly as I can."

Leene gestured wildly with her left hand. "If you can get him to shut up, I'm all for it."

"Closing tiiiiiiiime! One last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer! Closing tiiiiiiime! You don't have to go home, but you CAN'T STAY HERE!"

"Heard and acknowledged, your majesty," Lucca said immediately.

-XXX-

Crono didn't like the look on Lucca's face. Nor did he like the fact that she literally dragged him by the scruff of the neck out of the throne room, and dragged him in like manner up four sets of stairs to her bedroom - God, her_ bedroom_! - just to glare at him.

She set her jaw. "You. Are. So. _Dead_."

"But I didn't DO anything!" Crono protested, much like a child caught cutting his little sister's hair would.

Lucca exhaled sharply. "You snuck out in the middle of the night, taking Marle with you, got so drunk you started hallucinating, and nearly got yourself put away for the rest of your life. Yeah. You did something. Something _stupid_, Crono. Real _stupid_."

Crono looked around. "Where IS Marle?"

Lucca scowled. "In bed. She passed out. Oh, and speaking of Marle. Why was there a _ring_ on her finger? An engagement ring, I'll add?"

Crono frowned, and struggled to remember. "Let's see... we... had a snack. Some sort of cake, I think. Then..." He squinted at a white sheet that was covering up a lump in the corner of the room. "I think I proposed."

Lucca's mouth fell open.

"Yeah, that's right, 'cause we made out like drunk teenagers after she said yes."

"That might be because... you _were goddamn drunk teenagers!" _Lucca's face was inches from Crono's at this point. "Is there anything ELSE you did?_ Illegal_, perhaps?"

She'd meant it as sarcasm. Really. But Crono missed the sarcasm and plowed on ahead.

"Well, there was that dead body floating in the pond. We thought it was dead, anyway. So I poked it with my sword, and it moved. It looked funny, though, so I poked it again, and accidently impaled it. So we walked down the bridge and saw some illegal gambling going on, so I beat them over the head with a yam I stole from a market. And then there was the incident with the farmer and nun-"

"Alright, stop. Just... stop," Lucca said, shaking her head and wringing her hands. "I do not EVER want to hear that again."

Crono pointed at the lump in the corner. "What's that?"

Lucca glowered at him for a few seconds longer for changing the subject. "A robot."

Crono bit his lip. "You're building a robot out of faulty middle-aged technology? You DO have a death wish."

"It's to help us get back to our own time," Lucca snapped. "Right now, I'm for anything to get us home. So you'll just have to deal with it." Sighing, she pulled the sheet off the robot. It was humanoid, rather slim and rusty, apparently black in color, and about six feet tall. Wires and an unidentifiable mess of random parts were sticking out of it at random angles. "I was going to ask you to run to a hardware store and pick up a few things for me, but after today's little escapade in the market, I'm doubting your reliability."

"Oh, come on, now, Lucca," Crono argued. "I get drunk once, and you're jumping me with the 'you're not reliable' gunk."

"Once my hat," Lucca spat. "Remember the time you got so drunk you thought you could fly off the roof of the school? Probably not, since you woke up and thought you'd just been ice skating and broke your ankle."

"I hadn't been ice skating?"

"See?" Lucca threw her hands in the air. "See? This is _exactly_ why you're not leaving the castle until I finish the robot. Now, just... stay here. Don't leave this room until I get back. And don't mess with anything," she added warningly, closing the door behind her.

Crono glanced at the robot. "So. What's your name?"

-XXX-

"You know, a-a..." Lucca held her hands about six inches apart. "It's about this size. It's a... a goddamn battery! How fucking hard could that be to find?"

The merchant shrank back.

Lucca had walked to the market in Truce village, looking for a battery. None of the seven merchants she had spoken with had even the faintest clue what a battery was. After miserably failing to explain the concept of a battery to the first four, the last three were forced to listen to her screaming at them. how very upset she was, too.

"Listen very carefully. 12V. 12AH. Is that such a hard concept? It's a battery. Electrical and stuff. You know? This big... you have no idea what I'm saying, do you?"

Slowly, the merchant shook his head.

Lucca heaved a sigh. "Great. Now I just have to find an alternate source of elect...ricit...y..." She smacked her forehead. "Crono! Of course! He has lightning magic!"

She sprinted back to the castle.

-XXX-

He knew Lucca would be pissed. Just knew it. All he'd done was touch the robot. Just touched it. And it came to life. And... oh, God, Lucca was going to be pissed, he just _knew_ it. So when she burst into the room, he made sure she knew what had really happened.

"It magically sprang to life! Spekkio! He's cursed us, and sent us all a warning, to repent of our unholy sins!"

Almost. He'd left out a few details, though. You know, important details.

"SWEET JESUS!"

Lucca wasn't angry. She was mortified.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?"

The robot looked at her. "What the hell are you?"

Lucca's eyes widened. "What the hell are _you_?"

"I am a robot. Dur. Humans, such a pitifully ignorant species."

Lucca wheeled on Crono. "Do you ever _think_ before you act?"

Crono shrugged. "Well, yeah. I think about monkeys sometimes."

Lucca ran her fingers through the ends of her hair. "Oh, Jesus... Oh... what am I going to do now?"

Marle peeked into the room. "Am I missing something? Why are you... screaming... oh."

The robot looked at her. "And you must be a third squishy pink carbon-based life form."

"Uh, sure. What are you?"

"Are all squishy pink carbon-based life forms this ignorant?" the robot wondered. "Perhaps it is just idiocy."

Lucca grabbed Marle's arm. "Come out in the hall with me for a minute..." She closed the door behind her, ignoring the "Holy sh- AAAAUGH!" and loud thuds coming from the room. "See what your fiance did? He's going to kill us!"

Marle shrugged. "Well, you _did_ build the robot. Where's its power supply?"

Lucca threw her hands up. "I don't know! I was going to put it in the robot's head, but God knows where it actually ended up! It could be in the robot's goddamn ASS for all we know!"

"Well, only way to know is to ask it."

Marle pushed the door back open, and saw Crono lying unconscious on the floor. "Oh, dear."

"What happened?" Lucca demanded shrilly.

"If I had to venture a guess, I would say he passed out from an overdose of retardism," the robot said.

Lucca hit her head on the door. "Why? WHY?"

Marle smiled awkwardly. "So. Um... you need a name, I guess."

"NO IT DOESN'T!" Lucca yelled.

Marle bent down next to a sobbing Lucca. "If we're nice to it, maybe it'll refrain from killing us."

"For now," the robot added helpfully.

Sniffling, Lucca stood up. "Alright, then. Hey, robot. What's your name?"

The robot looked at her. "Name? I do not understand. What is a name?"

"You know, a name. It's something that gives a person his or her uniqueness. And stuff... you know... a name... stuff..." Lucca faltered. How the hell were you supposed to explain something like that to a violent robot?

"Clearly, your human brain is suffering some sort of malfunction," the robot said.

"Ugh. Whatever." Lucca threw up her hands and glared at it. "You don't GET a name, then. We'll just call you 'Hey Shithead.'"

The robot jerked its head up and down. "Sounds acceptable. I am Hey Shithead."

Lucca smacked her forehead.

"Uggghh..." Crono sat up. "What the hell happened... I feel like someone hit me over the head with a wrench..."

"I did," Hey Shithead said.

"Oh... okay..."

"Well, humans, since you have outstayed your usefulness... time for you to die."

Lightning flashed through the room, followed by ear-splitting thunder. Hey Shithead picked up a rope, a wrench, and a sword.

"I would love to play a game. It is called hide and seek. I shall count to twenty. One... Two..." Hey Shithead began to count.

Lucca, Marle, and Crono took off. Not before Crono blamed the whole thing on Lucca, though.

"Four... Five..."

_**To be continued...**_

_Yay! Humor! Take that, other chapters! Okay, well, next chapter will be funny. And it'll have the odd Scary Movie theme to it. XD Ah... yes. Funny. All sorts of scary movies put together in one twisted parody. And by twisted, I'm serious. TWISTED. Well, g'night, y'all. _


	6. Real Original

_Sorry. That's all I have to say. Look, don't complain, at least I haven't gone three months without updating like SOME people I know. Here ya go, don't forget to read, review, all that jazz. I've got 19 reviews and over a hundred hits, so SOME PEOPLE are not reviewing. For God's sake, just do it. It hardly takes twenty seconds to click the "submit review" box, type out how retarded I am, and submit the review. Honestly, it wouldn't kill you. Anyway, I don't own any of the random things I swipe in this chapter, I don't own Chrono Trigger, and you can kiss my big toe if you think I do._

**_Chapter Six: Real Original_**

Crono, Marle, and Lucca sprinted through the castle as Hey Shithead calmly counted to twenty.

"I - haven't - mentioned - just - how - much - I - hate - you -Lucca-" Crono wheezed as they ran through the throne room.

"No, only... a few hundred times..." Lucca panted.

"What in the name of the king are you three doing?" Leene asked, standing up.

"Robot! Kill it us we run, Lucca EEK! Hey my name robot is killing Shithead us we! Ruuuun!" Crono screamed, flying out the front doors and into the thunderstorm ensuing outside.

"What the-"

"No time to talk, Leene!" Lucca called out, having finally caught her breath. "We've got a problem if he's running around the village screaming incoherent gibberish, so we really can't-"

"TWENTY! READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!"

"What was that?" Leene wondered.

"SHIT!" Lucca yelled. "Run, Marle!"

The two girls ran out after the swordsman and into the freezing rain, leaving a confused queen to encounter the homicidal robot.

"Good evening, fleshy pink meat bag," Hey Shithead said pleasantly.

"What the- what the hell are you?" Leene stammered, jumping back off the throne.

"I am a robot," Hey Shithead said after a brief pause. "I would assume your knowledge of my species is unknown to you?"

Leene merely mouthed "God, God, God" over again, her eyes wide and her face pale.

"I take this stunned silence as an affirmative," Hey Shithead responded. "My memory chip had processed the data thoroughly, and came upon the reasoning that you are even more primitive than the one called 'Lucca'. Might I politely ask where the other three fleshy meat bags went? Or might I be forced to exert large amounts of force upon the back of your 'skull'? I understand that a skull wound is often fatal in fleshy creatures."

"They-they-" Leene pointed with a shaky finger toward the door. "They left."

"Processing data... affirmative. I will spare your puny life for the time being."

Hey Shithead walked smoothly out the doors to the rain, leaving Leene to pass out.

"It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down, I had the radio on, I was drivin', trees flew by, me and Del were singin' little Runaway.

I was flyin'. Yeah. Runnin' down a dream," he sang in his monotonous voice as he walked into the forest. "Processing probability that the fleshy meat bags are hiding in the trees... processing data... twenty-three point eight-four-three percent. Negative, they would not be there, percentile must be approximately forty-two point three percent. Processing probability that the fleshy meat bags are hiding in the ominous cave on the opposite side of the forest... processing data... seventy-nine point six percent. Affirmative, they are hiding in the cave." He paused. "Artificial memory card states that the ominous cave in the dark forest while there is an abundance of precipitation and reverberating thunder is a highly cliched scene. Yet, it will be oddly satisfying."

With artificial cheeriness, he ripped a sign that said "Warninge, noe Trespassinge on thine Castle Guardia" out of the ground, and proceeded toward the cave.

Inside the cave, Marle, Lucca, and Crono were trying to figure out what to do.

"I implanted probability chips in him," Lucca said with frustration. "And I just know he'll wind up coming to this cave because of how goddamned cliched it is."

"And whose fault is that, Lucca dear?" Crono said nastily.

"I told you not to touch it!" Lucca all but yelled.

"Shh!"

"And she's climbing the stairway to heaven," Hey Shithead was droning as he walked even closer to the cave.

"Sweet Spekkio, we just cornered ourselves," Crono murmured with a grimace.

"We're going to have to fight our way out," Lucca said, pulling her Wondershot out.

"What, fight that thing?" Crono wailed. "It's more homicidal than Ayla!"

"Come out, come out wherever you are..." Hey Shithead said. "Time to come out and play, Charlie."

He approached the cave. "Heat sensors indicate three fleshy meat bags. Oh, Chaaaaaarliiiiieeee..."

"Aim for his head," Lucca was instructing. "I put the memory chips there. I think. Well, Crono's lightning might have rearranged some of the chips. Just aim for the head. And pray that your weapon goes through the entirely too durable titanium alloy that the robot is built from."

"Oh, yeah," Crono said sarcastically. "That's just a slight problem. Where'd you get titanium anyway?"

Lucca didn't have time to reply.

"Heeeere's Shithead!"

Crono ducked as the wooden sign narrowly missed his head, and the sign splintered into several large pieces against the wall of the cave, much to Hey Shithead's artificial delight.

"My artificial mind suggests that terminating you meat bags individually would be highly preferred and more enjoyable to terminating you primitive creatures all at once," Hey Shithead suggested. "Apparently, you creatures do not like termination."

"Well, my fleshy brain thinks that you are mean," Crono said.

"And my artificial mind suggests that you are a 'douchebag'."

"Let's not get nasty here," Crono pouted.

While the two had been conversing, Lucca and Marle had snuck behind the robot and were headed toward the entrance before the robot's sensors picked up on them.

"Meat bags, I advise against your pitiful attempts to escape."

"Listen," Lucca said in exasperation. "This is ridiculous. Why are you trying to kill us? I programmed you to help us get back to our time, not to chase us all in a deadly game of 'hide-and-seek'."

"You programmed me to terminate," the robot replied. "And terminate I must. I am, in essence, the Terminator."

"This has 'lawsuit' written all over it," Crono muttered.

"Dude, I programmed you to help us. I wouldn't have you terminate," Lucca said.

"Negative. I was programmed to destroy."

"Isn't there some sort of universal law all robots have to follow?" Crono demanded of Lucca.

"Well, yeah," Lucca replied. "Three of them, actually."

"Would 'thou shalt not harm humans' be one of them?"

Lucca snorted. "No. One: Do what you're programmed to do, no matter what it is. Two: Humans are always inferior. Three: Don't fuck up the first two laws."

Crono threw up his hands. "Why would humans create things that are required, by law, to be not inferior?"

"Translation: Why would fleshy pink meat bags program robots to be superior in every way," the robot said. "Your answer, puny human: Robots are, lightly put, cooler than humans."

"Why are we all standing in this dirty cave discussing this?" Marle demanded. "Shouldn't we be having a race through the castle, some sort of cage death match, anything better than this?"

"I vote for the cage death match," Crono announced before Lucca whacked him in the back of the head with her hand.

"The probability of your inevitable demise would be higher in the death match," Hey Shithead agreed. "The alternate suggestion of moving through the human breeding ground for government at rapid paces would be more enjoyable to my artificial emotions center, and your probability of survival is a rather high twenty-eight point six percent, as opposed to the point three-six-four percent probability of survival in the death match."

"Stop talking smart!" Crono wailed.

"I shall give you meat bags one millisecond multiplied by-"

"RUN!" Crono yelled, grabbing Marle's arm and sprinting out of the cave, with a frantic Lucca running right behind.

"My artificial emotions are truly enjoying this," Hey Shithead mused as he processed numbers of such a minute state that the human mind would implode if it even attempted to process them.

---

The trio had split up upon reaching the castle. Lucca's reasoning behind this was, in simpler terms:

"If we split up, the robot'll have to travel all over the castle to kill us, so if one of us dies, the other two can figure out how to stop it."

Crono, being the pessimist, decided to point out the flaw in the plan.

"What if he gets tired of walking all over the place and decides to blow the whole place up?"

Lucca really didn't have much of an answer, but she did mumble something that sounded suspiciously like "I knew I shouldn't have given the robot an automatic grenade launcher..."

Ignoring Crono's half-gurgled response to that, Lucca pointed to the knight's quarters. "There. Go down there."

She rushed off to the kitchens, and Marle headed to the top floor of the castle.

The front doors crashed open, and the shadow of Hey Shithead was outlined by the lightning in the background. You know, the typical cliched scene. The other one, at any rate.

"Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get married..."

Scanning around the perimeter, the robot immediately discovered where the three were: one in the knight's quarters, one in the kitchen, and one in the upper levels, in one of the guest bedrooms. "They make this too simple."

He headed off in the direction of the knight's quarters.

---

Crono cowered in the corner, behind a bed. The basement. The goddamn basement. The only thing that gave him any comfort was that Lucca would be dead within an hour.

Of course, so would he. A twenty-eight percent chance of survival was not a very high percentage.

"I feel pretty, oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and gaaaaaay..."

The robot was coming closer. It was so very close. Maybe it would take pity on Crono and just kill him quickly. But no, it's a robot. Robots have no real emotions. Well, Robo, yeah, but not any of Lucca's own handmade homicide machines.

"I seeeeeee you..."

The robot blasted the bed with a laser. "Boo."

Crono whimpered, threw his hands over his head, and started sobbing like a baby. "Pity me!"

"This is unfortunate," Hey Shithead said, staring at the whimpering swordsman. "I was rather hoping for you to attempt to destroy me. Ah, my probability chip suggests a ten percent increase in your survival rate provided I state where my central harddrive is located. Affirmative or negative?"

Crono stopped his whimpering long enough to say "I get to run away after that, right?"

"That would increase your survival rate by only one point four times ten to the negative thirty-first power in percentile, meat bag."

"That's better than zero," Crono said. "Right? I was never good at scientific notation."

"It is lower than the probability of yourself and Lucca becoming passionate lovers."

"Dear God, that IS low."

"Affirmative. I will allow you to run, however, you will only last a few seconds longer."

That few seconds was all Crono needed. "Sounds great. Give me five seconds to run like a ninny?"

"Agreed. Would you like to know where my hard drive is?"

"Yup."

Hey Shithead pointed at his left foot. "Now. One. Two..."

Crono lunged across the room, rushed out the door, and sprinted to Lucca's room.

He could hear Hey Shithead walking calmly down the hall, and knew that time was short. He grabbed the very same wrench with which Hey Shithead had bashed Crono over the head earlier. He then clambered under the bed, and held the wrench ready.

His plan was to wait until Hey Shithead approached the bed, then drive the wrench through the robot's left foot. It was ingenious, really, and he was quite proud of himself for his intelligent decision.

Hey Shithead approached the bed. "I am incapable of bending over, meat bag. It would be easier on yourself to just climb out before I set my weapons system on a thick, poisonous gas that will suffocate you."

Crono jerked his arm out and brought the wrench down as hard as he could on the robot's foot. The wrench went through cleanly, and electricity crackled. For a second, Crono really thought he'd destroyed the robot.

The robot glanced down. "Wrong foot, douchebag."

"Dammit."

Crono rolled out of the way as the robot shot a laser at him. He unsheathed his sword swiftly, and aimed a blow at the robot's head. The robot used its hand to block the blow, and the hand came off with sparks flying everywhere. Grabbing the nightstand next to the bed, Hey Shithead managed to nail Crono on the side of the head, sending Crono sprawling across the room. With the accuracy of a blind sniper, Crono chucked a book on periodicals at the robot, who merely watched it fly by five feet away.

"You're not very good at this, meat bag."

"Yeah, well..." Crono could feel blood spilling from his nose, and he couldn't see things very clearly. The robot grabbed a metal pipe of some sort off the heap in the corner, and slowly approached the swordsman.

"Preparing target for termination."

Where the hell were Marle and Lucca?

Meanwhile...

Lucca dug through the pantry in desperation. The robot seemed to be acting the opposite of how it should. She had a theory, and she hoped Crono and Marle would figure it out before the robot got them.

If the robot is acting oppositely, there could be a chance that the harddrive had been switched to the chips in the robot's feet when Crono touched it. She wasn't sure how the idiot could have managed it, but she intended to make sure it didn't become a deadly game of tag that this robot was trying to suck them into.

"Where the hell are you - ah. There you are."

She found what she was looking for, and hesitated. Where would Crono be...? She doubted he was in the knight's quarters anymore. Probably...

"MY LIVER!" someone screamed.

She ran off toward her room.

Back to Crono...

The robot had nailed him in the gut with the pipe, and it had hurt, hell yes, it had hurt. About the only other time he was in that much pain was when Lavos had been kicking their asses.

"There's gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight, I know," Hey Shithead sang monotonously as he swung again.

"There's gonna be a hell of alot more than a heartache tonight," Crono grunted, rolling away and gripping his sword tightly. "And what's with you and classic rock tod-"

The robot nailed the ground next to Crono's head.

"Pity, my accuracy system is malfunctioning," Hey Shithead mused. "By all accounts, you should be terminated by now."

Crono staggered up, leaning on his sword for support. "This is getting tedious."

"Agreed."

Crono lunged at the robot's left foot, missed, and ended up slashing Lucca's bedsheets. The robot used this advantage to strike Crono in the back with the pipe. Crono fell forward, caught himself by sticking his sword in the wall, and yanked his sword back out.

"Eat blade, suckah."

The robot attempted to fire a laser at Crono, but missed as Crono kicked off the wall, flew through the air, and brought the blade through the robot's left foot.

Lucca threw the door open just as the robot dropped to the ground. She was cradling a bottle of wine in her arms, and Marle was right behind her.

"You-" Lucca was in shock. _Crono_ had defeated the robot? Crono? "You beat it?"

Crono wiped blood off his face. "Yeah. I ache. I need alcohol, and lots of it." He dragged himself over to Lucca, snagged the bottle, popped the cork, took a long draft of it, and walked into his room across the hall without another word, still carrying the wine.

Marle finally spoke. "Wow. He really trashed your room."

That was an understatement. The bed was nearly in tatters, there were books strewn everywhere, there were huge holes in the walls that were letting the freezing rain in, there were huge holes in the floor and ceiling, and the nightstand had been splintered. There really wasn't much of a room left to be trashed. So much for a twenty-eight percent chance of Crono dying, Marle thought, eying the room. Crono had sure put up one hell of a fight.

Lucca shook her head. "I was going to use this wine to temporarily disable Hey Shithead, then rip its foot off myself. He totally trashed my robot. Look, it's missing an arm, both its feet are totaled, and it's dented all over."

"Lucca, the thing tried to kill us," Marle said, frowning. "You're not sad that Crono trashed this thing, are you?"

Truthfully, yes. "No, not really. I was hoping to use it to get us back to our time. Guess I'll have to build something else. And keep it far, far away from Crono. And I think I'll have to stay in a different room tonight."

Marle nodded. "I'm going to bed. That was enough excitement for one day."

Lucca agreed. "Now let's get out of here."

The two headed off down the hall to go to bed, Lucca smirking. Crono was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.

_-To be continued-_

_Alright, so I lied last chapter. Not much "scary movie" material. Mainly just the "Hide and Seek" stuff. Although there were numerous references to classic rock songs. Brownie points go to the people who know who sang the songs. And review. Pretty please?_


	7. Can't We All Just Get Along?

_Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff, Squaresoft does. Well, Squaresoft owns MY copy of the game, Square-Enix probably owns the version most of you use. I use the SNES game. And... whatever. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore._

_Thanks y'all. :) I like reviews. They make me happy. REALLY happy. So, I was trying to decide what to do for this chapter, see? And I realized that all my ideas have expired. See, I've already done the homicidal robot, the kidnapping spiel, and the horribly drunk majiggy. Well, there IS the whole "Lucca gets to build them a super-spaceship and save them all" thing, but hey. That's no fun. So I continued thinking, and came up with the most brilliant of ideas. Mwahahah. Here y'all go, enjoy. And leave reviews, or I will cry and be unloved. I'm loved... right?_

_**Chapter Seven: Can't We All Just Get Along?**_

_"Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking." -Dave Barry_

_---_

Lucca woke up the next morning with a bright smile on her face. Oh, she would love to see how Crono would react to being woken up with a massive hangover... hell, she could wake him up. Right then. Lucca laughed evilly, stopped, and wondered where the hell her mind had gone. She shrugged, and went into Crono's room anyway.

Crono was snoring peacefully on the bed, clearly asleep. Lucca stopped in the doorway to savor the moment, then ripped the curtains open, letting extremely bright sunlight pour into the dimly lit room.

This immediately woke the poor person asleep on the bed.

"Augh! Close it! Close it! My head!"

"Gooooood morning, sleepyhead!" Lucca said brightly, leaning over his twitching body. "Sleep well?"

Crono merely whimpered, and curled into a small ball, rocking back and forth.

"That good, huh? All right. How was your night?" Lucca continued.

"I can't remember anything. Which sucks, since my ass is hurting like hell and I want to know what I'd been doing..."

"You got married," Lucca said, grinning.

Time could have been frozen. Crono's face was set in a horrified expression, and Lucca had forced a sympathetic look onto her face.

"I- I what?"

"You, Sir Stud Muffin, got married to some random showgirl from far away," Lucca said, forcing herself not to laugh. "She was quite a looker, though. Maybe you mistook her for Marle? No, this chick had long red hair, in a braid. Erm... pointy ears..." Lucca frowned, and struggled to put the picture in her mind, then was struck by inspiration. "A cape. Big breasts, right. Hmm. Oh, right. She could use magic, too. Turned right into a bat and flew off when she heard Marle coming. You had such a busy night, too. Heard noises coming from in here. Fact is, she might have been a _guy_..."

This description had Crono retching - literally. As soon as he could breathe, he panted, choked out "Flea?" and continued retching things he hadn't eaten yet.

Lucca struggled not to laugh, but it was just too damn funny. The laughter spouted from her like lies spout from politicians.

Crono threw up one more time, then looked at her. "Wait. I didn't, did I?"

He got a choked response from the laughing Lucca.

"That's it, hangover or no, you - are - _dead_!"

Crono grabbed his sword and lunged at Lucca who stopped laughing instantly and dove out of the way. Crono turned, and saw the fireball coming at him. He deflected it with the sword and took a stab at Lucca again, who slid across the bed and looked around desperately for a weapon. She settled on a chair, knowing full well it wouldn't stop Crono from tearing it into shreds in about three seconds flat.

"Hey, sorry, sorry!" Lucca shrieked, watching the chair splinter when Rainbow slammed into it. "Well, never mind then! Just go fuck yourself."

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Crono roared.

And he just might have, too, if Marle hadn't come to investigate the noise.

"Hey, what are you guys doing-"

She ducked as a framed picture of some old dead guy flew at her. The picture flew into the hallway, smashed against the wall, and broke. Annoyed, she put her hands on her hips, and glared through the haze of smoke and debris that polluted the room.

"STOP."

Crono glanced up, his hand on Lucca's throat. Lucca's knee was currently in Crono's groin, both were covered in scrapes and bruises, and neither looked too happy about being interrupted.

"_What_, may I ask, are you two _doing_?"

Both started talking at once, Lucca's responses choked and Crono's through gritted teeth.

"She woke me up-"

"Just a joke-"

"She was being-"

"He can't take a joke-"

"-jackass-"

"-moron-"

"It's all her-"

"His-"

"ALRIGHT!" Marle yelled, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "One at a time. Lucca?"

"I wanted to be funny-"

"Tremendously _funny_, Lucca," Crono said dryly. "While we're at it, let's go take me off on a _boating_ trip to the castle previously known as Magus' castle, eh? Oh, better idea. Let's go feed me to rampaging _monkeys_ in the _Prehistoric Era_."

"Shut up, douche. Anyway, I opened the drapes, you know, to make him mad, since he's having a massive hangover and all."

"Yeah," Marle said, frowning. "And... lemme guess. It pissed him off a bit too much."

Lucca nodded. "He lunged at me with a sword-"

Crono snorted. "Let me interject this tidbit. She told me I'd gotten_ married_. To _Flea_. After I finished throwing up, she laughed. _Then_ I lunged at her with a sword."

"You told him what now?" Marle managed, her eyes wide in shock.

Lucca mumbled something incoherent.

"Oh, Lucca..." Marle shook her head. "What did you tell him when he lunged at him?"

Frog chose that exact moment to walk in.

"I told him I was sorry, and he swung at me, and I said 'well, never mind that! Go fuck yourself!' And-"

The three looked over at Frog, who looked rather out of place.

"Um, shall I come back at a more opportune time?" Frog said, shifting his feet.

Crono sheathed his sword and huffed out of the room.

Frog watched the disgruntled swordsman stalk past, and asked "Why is he-"

Lucca shook her head. "He can't take a joke. He's such an asshole." She walked out and headed toward her room.

Marle shrugged, and answered Frog's unasked question. "Crono got drunk after slaying Lucca's killing machine. She decided it would be _fun_ to wake him up early."

Frog nodded. "I see. Lady Lucca requested that this highly unstable chemical be placed in her room. Shall I wait until she hath calmed?"

"Um... yeah, that'd be best, probably."

Frog nodded. "Do they fight like this often?"

"Well, they bicker from time to time. I can't remember the last time they actually tried to assassinate each other, though."

"I do not like it."

"Yeah, well, what can you do? Later, Frog."

"Farewell, Lady Marle."

---

Breakfast that morning was so tense you could cut it with a plastic knife and eat it.

"Honey, could you ask Lucca to pass me the salt?" Crono said through gritted teeth.

"Marle, could you ask the nimrod to pass the milk?" Lucca asked without looking up.

Marle threw up her hands. "Nuh-uh. Talk to each other. Not me."

"Hey, bitch. Give me the salt," Crono sneered at Lucca.

"Hey, jackass, gimme the milk," Lucca shot back.

"You want the milk?" Crono yelled, standing up and knocking his water over. "Here's your goddamn _MILK_!"

With that, he chucked it at her. She ducked and the milk container shattered against the opposite wall. Lucca glared at Crono, and hurled the salt bottle at him. He was too slow to duck, and the bottle shattered on his head, leaving a gash.

He was extremely unhappy with this.

"Oh, now you've pissed me off!" Crono yelled, grabbing his sword and beginning to lean across the table.

"What a pity," Lucca snarled. "I guess I should be shaking in my little space boots now, huh?"

There was a crash of glass as Crono slid across the table, sending food and plates flying. Ignoring Marle's frantic yells completely, the two took advantage of their location in the kitchen - and promptly attempted to kill the other using a variety of eating utensils, such as steak knives and especially pointy forks, shoving large spoons into the other person's ears, and basting the other with salt water, as well as trying to shove each other in the oven fire, all magic abilities forgotten. Neither managed to shove the other in completely, but Lucca managed to get Crono's head to catch on fire, much to her glee. In retaliation, Crono tried to strangle Lucca with a dish rag after putting the fire out. Lucca kneed him in the groin again, and punched him in the eye for the hell of it as she got up, taking advantage of his temporary pause. Grimacing, Crono threw the nearest eating utensil at Lucca - it turned out to be a spoon, which left only a red mark on her forehead. Still, Lucca became incensed, and threw a tomato at him. He ducked, and threw a bag of flour across the room, which exploded in a big white cloud all over her. Shaking it all over the place, Lucca let off a wild shriek and pulled off a bunch of nifty Matrix-esque moves, nailing Crono in the head. Grunting, he returned the favor by nailing her in the side of the head with a saucepan coated in what appeared to be a thick paste resembling peanut butter. Both then proceeded to pass out.

"Sweet mother loving..." Marle leaned over the unconscious bodies, both of which were severely scathed, covered in blood, and appeared to have various broken bones. "Um, this doesn't look good."

---

Leene sighed as she looked at the two teens, who had been put in separate dungeon cells that were nonstrategically placed side by side, with only two feet of flimsy middle-aged metal between them, to keep them from murdering each other. Marle had healed the two of their broken bones, but broken bones weren't the only things ailing Crono and Lucca - their dignity had also taken an unfortunate trip down a slopeless cliff.

"Who started it?"

Crono shrugged. "Maybe I did. I can't remember."

"Yeah, he did," Lucca grumbled. "Second time today, in fact."

Leene shook her head. "Okay, you should know that the kitchens have suffered severe damages. You caused about three thousand gold worth of damage to it, you two. I am immensely displeased. You will stay here for a week. Maybe you can learn to get along..."

With that, Leene walked out of the dungeons.

Crono wasted no time in blaming the whole thing on Lucca. "This is your fault, y'know."

And Lucca wasted no time in informing Crono that it was, in fact, his fault. "What? What is this I hear? Mr. _Let's all go and kill each other over nothing _blames ME for this?"

"Uh, yeah!" Crono said in agitation. "If you hadn't opened the curtains, I wouldn't be pissed, now _would_ I?"

"Reality check - that was for amusement, moron."

"Oh, yes. I thoroughly enjoyed that, mmm-hmm. Massive headache equals _great_ start to a _great_ day!"

"Oh, yeah. Like this is a good time for sarcasm, nimrod."

"Did I forget to add that headaches hurt? Gasp! Captain Obvious to the rescue!"

"Hey, idiot, stop with the sarcasm."

"Oh, I may have forgotten to add that getting your head caught on fire is slightly unpleasant, too."

"Really, now. Would never have guessed."

"What happened to it not being time for sarcasm, Lucca the _Wonderfully Awesomely Great_?"

"You're lucky there's three feet of metal between you and my fists."

"Not three. More like... two feet, five inches."

"Kiss my ass."

"Go to hell."

"Jackass."

"Douche squared."

"Bitch."

This verbal exchange went on for a few hours, until they ran out of insults and resorted to utter malarkey.

"Kisser of bananas."

"Eater of monkey... eyeballs. No, wait. I said that one already... Eater of monkey nose hairs."

"Poo face."

"Son of a silly person."

"Animal food trough wiper."

"English pig dog."

"French person."

"I- okay, that went too far."

"Yeah it did. Sorry."

"Meh. I'm out of insults."

"Me too. I've been out of them for ages."

"Ditto. I'm going to bed."

---

Marle sulked. Without Lucca to build something, they were all stuck there forever. She wanted to get home. She was sick of the fighting, and she wanted the two to just get along. Was that too much to ask? She began to wonder if it would have been better if they'd been stuck in the future instead. No, then they'd be imprisoned anyway. For breaking and entering the last time they'd been there. And flying in a No Fly Zone. She thought for a few minutes longer, and came up with a logical conclusion about this predicament.

It sucked.

---

Queen Leene paced the throne room. Why? Why were they still there? She had no idea what had happened. They'd just... dropped by. And refused to leave. And they'd already decimated half the castle. Oh, what the king was going to say when he got back... He'd probably have them hanged. Not a bad idea, now that she thought of it...

---

Mr. Tinkles watched Lucca and Crono sleep. He wished they'd go back to cursing at each other. It was funnier that way. He meowed sadly. Ooh! A mouse! He chased it giddily, forgetting about everything else.

---

Crono and Lucca spent the next few days in near silence. The only thing that had them speaking was when Lucca told Crono to stop humming sappy love songs. Aside from that, there was no bickering, no fighting, and best of all, no castle decimating. Life was peaceful.

Until Leene made the error of letting them out.

Needless to say, it wasn't pretty. Crono had a sharp stick, three rusty spoons, and his lightning magic, and Lucca had a heavy metal pipe, two rusty kettles, and her fire magic. Be creative with the minors.

"That's IT!"

Right in the middle of this cage death match, Lucca had a brilliant epiphany. Well, and a spoon in her ear, but that didn't bother her.

"Crono, can we put off killing each other for a few hours? I think I can get us back to our time!"

Crono considered. "Well..." He paused, frowned, and scratched his head. "Does it involve a homicidal robot?"

Lucca shook her head. "No."

Resignedly, Crono sighed, and pulled the spoon out of her ear. "Alright."

---

"The three of you must be gone by Thursday morning," Leene announced early the next morning. "If you are still here by three this afternoon, an angry mob of angry people will have to kill you for the damage done to the market at two o'clock this morning."

Lucca shifted. "Um, about that..."

Leene held up a hand. "Frankly, I really don't want to know what you were doing there at two this morning."

"Oh, that's relieving. 'Cause I really don't think you'd have liked it."

"Anyway, you have four hours left. Make the most of your time, otherwise... well, I can't stop angry mobs. Once they start, they don't stop. And they're very keen on murdering you."

---

"Alright, well, I am going to need your help, Crono," Lucca muttered reluctantly.

Crono cocked an eyebrow, and grinned inwardly at the genius's reluctant cringe. "Oh? What for?"

"We have to be out of here in three hours. Otherwise, a crowd of angry mobsters is going to kill us. And the way Leene looked when she said 'mob' gives me the impression of something more like a... 'mafia'."

"Crap."

"You're telling me. So, we gotta hurry."

"Can't you build something that slows time down?"

"You're right. If only we had a magical tool that could slow down time. I foolishly left mine back home, did you bring yours?"

"You know, you're not pleasant when you're like this, Lucca."

"I'm always like this."

"My point exactly."

"Just shut up, I'm trying to build this thing."

"You sure you actually-" Crono paused, and leaned in to look at what she was building. "That's not a time machine."

"Brilliant observation. You're a genius. Smart as a...a...poodle."

"Poodle? Lucca, when was the last time you slept?"

"Duuuuhhh... shut up, I'm working."

"On a bomb."

"Bomb? Is that was this is?"

Crono backed away slowly. "You've never built a bomb before?"

"I built an atomic bomb for my sixth grade science fair exhibit."

"...Uh...huh."

"I was interrogated by the GPA - Guardia's Pinheads Association. (Well, really, the GIA - Guardia Intelligence Agency. What the hell.) For six hours. In a room that was smaller than... than..." Lucca paused, squinted at the bomb, and went to scratch her nose with a pen. She missed, and poked her eye. "Augh! My eye! I need that eye for seeing!"

"Lucca, let's get you off to bed, shall we?"

"Heehee. We're all going to die."

"Umm... You okay in there?"

"Death. Fun! I can't wait to die. How do you want to die?"

"I'd rather not, actually. Do you know how much I hate certain death?"

Lucca was clearly delirious. Whether it was from dehydration or lack of sleep, Crono couldn't tell. He could tell that it was freaky. And he didn't enjoy it. At all. In the least. Etcetera, etcetera.

"I know of a few kinds of death I'd enjoy. Hmm, let me see - we have slow death, quick death, painful death, cold lonely death . . ." Lucca's eyes glittered.

Crono smacked Lucca in the back of the head with a heavy book. Lucca fell to the floor with a thud, and Crono sighed. "At least you'll be getting sleep now, you lunatic..."

---

Marle walked into Lucca's room, and found her sleeping on the bed. "Um, Lucca? Shouldn't you be building something that'll get us home instead of sleeping?"

When Lucca didn't respond, Marle sighed in exasperation and walked over to the half completed bomb. "Sweet mother lovin'-"

Crono walked in. "Oh, she's still out- hi."

Marle pointed at the bomb. "Explain."

"Umm... it's not what it looks like?"

"You are so tactless."

"I've heard that one before."

"I CAME to inform you that the villagers are here a bit earlier then planned..."

"How long until they get here?"

"Let's see... carry the four... 42 minutes. Should we wait out on the porch?"

"Geez, and I thought Lucca was sarcastic."

"Huh. Well, what did you expect me to say? That they're knocking on the castle gates as we speak?"

"Well, no, but..." Crono frowned. "They're not, right?"

"I _said_, 'they're here a bit earlier than expected'. Is that not _clear_ enough for you?"

"That means they're here, huh?"

"Yes, you nimrod! Think! Think!"

"I don't wanna die!"

"Come on, there are only so many ways a bunch of mafia hitmen can kill people, right?"

"Well, there's slow death, quick death, painful death, cold lonely death..."

"You are _so _not helping."

"You two really need a marriage counselor," Lucca mumbled, pulling herself to a sitting position.

"We're not married!" the two yelled simultaneously.

"Yet," Crono added.

They looked out the window. A large mob full of priests carrying pitchforks and torches awaited. However backward that picture might have seemed, it was nowhere near as odd as the scene that followed.

A group of farmers tapped the priests on the shoulder, and held up books. The priests shook their heads and gestured at their pitchforks. The farmers shook their heads, and started wildly gesturing at the sky. Incensed, the priests jabbed the farmers with the pitchforks. In turn, the farmers dropped to their knees and began praying to whatever god they might have. The priests cold-bloodedly stabbed the farmers to death.

"Ooookay..." Crono stared at this bizzarity. "What in the holy name of Chad Michael Murray is going on here?"

Lucca frantically threw the bomb together, shoved some dry trinitrophenol in with the various metals for good measure, and walked to the window.

"Bombs away!"

_To be continued..._

_Sorry for that. I seem to have lost all sense of where I was going with this to begin with. My bad. Of course, that's what I get for living._

_Celebrate the last two days of Winter-een-mas with me! Don't know what Winter-een-mas is? Google it. Aaaaand... yeah! I'm done. Gotta do some of that utter bull pletunky called "precalculus." Ta. Goed tot ziens. Au revoir. Auf Wiedersehen. Αγαθό αντίο. Arrivederci. Adeus. Adiós._


	8. Not the First Time This Has Happened

_Yay, second to last chapter. And then I can be free - well, no, that's mean. And not entirely accurate. I've actually enjoyed writing this. It'll be sad to see it go, but I'll live. Obviously. Anyway, I don't own anything Chrono Trigger related except a really old copy of the game (the one without all the nifty anime-style cut scenes). Thanks to my lovely reviewers! I hope you enjoy this. If not, I blame Travis. He pulled a 180 on a dangerous intersection and nearly killed me. Several times. Okay, sorry. Here ya go!_

_**Chapter Eight: It's Not the First Time This Has Happened**_

"Lucca Ashtear and Crono Triggare, you have been brought before the court today..."

Marle was getting sick of this. The two had landed themselves in court.

Again.

"...on charges of murder in the second degree, destruction of property, and obstruction of justice. How do you plea?"

May the gods have mercy on their pitiful souls.

"Hey, I didn't obstruct justice!" Crono said indignantly. "I resisted arrest, those are two very different things."

The lawyer (or what would pass as a lawyer in the Middle Ages) sighed. _How the hell did I end up with these two? They're more hopeless than the milkman... and _damn_ was he hopeless._

Lucca cleared her throat after waiting for the lawyer, who said nothing. "Your judgeness, er, whatever, we're innocent! It was self defense, see, that's permissible."

"The explosive devise is most definitely not permissible, Miss Ashtear," the judge said with a frown.

"Ah, well, funny story, really..."

_Here we go_, the lawyer thought with an inward groan. _These never work._

"...and then the monster ran at us with a screwdriver, and I ducked, and the monster flew into the desk where my bomb was, and the bomb flew through the air and killed people after exploding."

Marle slapped her forehead. The lawyer slapped his forehead. Leene slapped her forehead. The jurors drank expensive wine without a damn idea of what was going on. Crono slapped his forehead. The judge slapped his forehead. Mr. Tinkles meowed giddily.

"Do you_ really _expect me to believe those trickery and lies?" the judge asked in exasperation, waving his gavel around, nearly conking his Middle-Ages equivalent of a bailiff in the head.

Lucca cocked her head. "I rather _hoped_ you would, yeah."

"How did you feel threatened, Miss Ashtear?" the judge demanded. "And enough trickery and lies, I'm tired of all the trickery and lies."

Lucca banged her fist on the table in front of her. "I did not kill that man!"

There was an awkward pause, broken only by Crono's "cough" that sounded suspiciously like "cough, _lawsuit, _cough."

"Er, wait. Rewind that?"

Crono cleared his throat loudly. "Seeing as Lucca is incapable of keeping her story straight-"

"Way to be on my side, ding dong," Lucca mumbled, clearly disgruntled.

"-I shall take this case into my own hands."

"NO!" Lucca and Marle both yelped.

"Now. Your honor-filled gavel-banging dude, the story Lucca tells is all lies."

"I gathered that," the judge muttered.

"And now, I will tell you the story of what truly happened," Crono went on, ignoring the judge completely.

Everyone else groaned.

_Two hours and forty-three minutes later..._

"...and after the man came at us with a banana, Lucca screamed, grabbed the nearest heavy object (the bomb, yeah?) and hurled it at him. Ironically, the bomb missed completely and flew out the window. Lucca yelled 'bombs away!' at the people to warn them to hightail it, 'cause she's soooo nice and all, but, alas, it was too late. So the man tripped, and fell out the window. He hit the bomb, which exploded in a fiery, explosive, gruesome death all over the place and there was much rejoicing. I mean, mourning. Yeah. And Leene wept, and we wept, and there was much wept-ing going on and stuff, and here we are."

The judge didn't respond. Upon closer observation, Crono realized that the judge was knocked out.

"That's what that thudding sound was. Huh."

Apparently, Crono had bored the judge to the point where the judge had hit himself with the gavel to spare himself the agony of listening to the swordsman's pathetic excuses.

In fact, _everyone_ had knocked themselves out with the nearest heavy object.

Shrugging, Crono grabbed the case papers, scribbled "Note Guiltye" on it (remembering that they often added "e" to the end of many of their words), and set it back on the judge's desk.

He waltzed out of the room with a smile on his face.

---

Marle was pissed.

"What in the name of-of- _what did you do?"_

It was late in the afternoon, about four hours after Crono's and Lucca's trial. The judge had been convinced that the jury had voted "not guilty," the jury was convinced that they might have for all they knew, and the judge let Lucca go. Naturally, Lucca had to explain that Crono had gone to the bathroom or something and that she'd grab him on her way out. Lucca, Crono, and Marle were booted from the castle, and were forced to chill at the inn (the innkeeper was reluctant, naturally, but when three armed young adults are aiming various weapons of utter sophisticatedness in your face, it's best to listen to them).

So, Lucca was in the middle of making a time machine, Crono was sipping what looked suspiciously like a tequila, and Marle was screaming at Crono.

Crono shrugged. "It worked, dinnit?"

"Are you _drunk? Again?"_

There was a long pause. "Maybe."

"Almost finished," Lucca announced. "And now, while we wait for the battery to charge - _don't you dare touch it, Crono _- I have a few things to say. Firstly. Marle, we're out of jail, that's all I care about right now. Screw the past, the present's all that matters right now. Second. When are you getting married?"

There was another long pause as Crono and Marle carried on a silent conversation with each other that looked much like a pair of rivaling mimes. Complete with the "box" thing. Finally the two glanced back over to Lucca.

"Thursday," Crono replied at the same time Marle said "when we get back."

The two glared at one another. Clearly, there had been some kind of miscommunication between the two.

"Well, we'll be back by Thursday, right?" Crono pressed. "I'm sick of being engaged, I feel like I should be buying you stuff to keep you engaged. And it's a sucky feeling."

Marle sighed reluctantly. "Yeah, fine. Whatever."

---

It was complete. Lucca's death machine - er - time machine. (Yes, sounds less diabolical... let us go with that one.)

"It's complete," Lucca declared, waking Crono up at two in the morning.

"Lucca's death machine is complete?" Crono yawned. "Great. I'll be out when I _care_."

And he went back to sleep.

Hoping to avoid the same "incident" with him that they'd had a couple of days before, Lucca thought her reaction through carefully. Pulling off his blanket would be successful, but last time she'd pulled his blanket off, he'd been wearing... less than is required in public, _that's_ for sure. And the last time she'd taken his teddy bear hostage, she'd ended up in the hospital for a few days.

"I'll make you a cake when we get back," Lucca suggested. "And then you can go back to sleep."

Crono grunted into his pillow. "Last time you cooked, I nearly _died_. My brain cells were committing hara-kiri like you wouldn't believe."

Lucca muttered something (which sounded similar to "what brain cells?") and sighed. "I'll force my mom to bake you a cake."

---

Crono stared at the machine. He scratched his head. He bit his lip. He stared some more. He scratched his nose hairs. Finally, he spoke.

"This some kind of joke? I'm beginning to wonder if one of Lara's cakes is worth getting out of bed for. This thing looks more homicidal than Hey Shithead did."

To be truly honest, the machine looked remarkably like Epoch. The only (subtle) differences were that it was red instead of the tannish color, and had no wings (which made it a red version of the original design of Epoch).

Lucca smacked his hand as he reached for it. "No."

Crono sighed. "Listen, it's been real. But death never really appealed to me in the same way it appealed to you. So I think I'll be headed off to bed now. Toodles."

Marle grabbed his arm. "Sorry, sweetie. You're not going anywhere."

"Aw, but honey..."

Lucca made fake gagging noises.

"Shut up, Lucca," Crono snapped. "You're just jealous that you can't get some-"

"Like _you_ have?" Lucca demanded, snorting.

"Nope," Marle said.

"Shush, honey."

Lucca clambered into the front seat. "All aboard."

The other two climbed in the back, and Lucca set the machine to their time.

They flew through a warp stream for a few minutes, and finally landed in Guardia, circa 1001 A.D. Or, to be more precise-

"Holy hand grenades-" Crono began to choke out.

"Speaking of which-" Lucca grunted, tackling Marle and Crono to the ground as a grenade whizzed by overhead.

"You! Hey, what are you doing?"

More grenades whooshed by, and the unmistakable sound of guns being fired filled the air.

They appeared to have landed themselves in the middle of a battlefield.

"_So_ totally not our time," Marle whimpered. "Or we _really_ screwed up the past..."

_---_

_Almost done. One chapter left, thanks, y'all. Review, yeah, all that fancy jazz. And I realize that I made up several words. Spell check verified that. How was I supposed to know that sucky isn't a word? Oh well, is now... mwahahah..._


	9. Evil Kitties Make Everyone Giggle

_Thanks for sticking around. Sorry I didn't have this done earlier, but school... it just sucks. This'll be the last chapter. Maybe. You know, unless I get way off track again. No more chapters for this particular plot (or lack thereof), sorry. At least it'll be long, maybe that'll make you happy. And as a head's up, I couldn't resist the crack regarding Mary Sues. You'll see later. :P_

_Disclaimer: I do not own CT. Never have, never will. Mr. Tinkles was a name that I thought up, though._

_**Chapter Nine: Evil Kitties Make Everyone Giggle **_

The bombs whizzed by overhead. Gunfire filled the air, and the sky was hazy with explosive residue.

Epoch II blew up.

"We're gonna die, aren't we?" Crono whispered to Lucca, who decided to ignore him and start running toward the southern part of the continent.

"If we hurry, we could reach my place by nightfall! We need to build another time machine and fix this!" she called out. "Hurry up, you'll be blown to bits!"

"You three, it's dangerous out here-" a man began, starting for them. Then he saw Marle. His expression changed from slightly annoyed to mortified to slightly curious in a matter of seconds. His eyes gleamed. "Empress? Oh, yes. This will definitely help our situation." He turned to a woman behind him. "Mary! It's the Empress! We can kill her and end this reign of terror she and her ancestors released upon this land!"

Marle's eyes widened. "_I _don't think that's a very good idea-"

Crono grabbed her hand and started sprinting. "Just run! Run for your life!"

Marle was nearly swept off her feet, but followed suit and started running to keep up with him so he didn't rip her arm off.

The woman the man had been speaking to performed a series of complicated backflips and triple axel (or whatever) aerial flips and landed as gracefully as a butterfly in front of him. "Oh no you don't. You're coming with me," she simpered in a silky voice that could make the most devout Christian woman in the history of devout Christian women turn lesbian for.

Crono stopped for a moment. The woman had large breasts; flowing blonde hair (that, despite the muddy and bomb-filled area, was completely spotless, untangled, and shiny); brightly unnatural purple eyes that (although nobody could tell otherwise) could see into the future; smooth, creamy white skin; and perfect teeth that were shiny and white. She was wearing tight leather and high-heeled boots. She used her Jedi mind-powers to levitate her ruby-encrested katana (which was a completely unnecessary weapon, as there were guns and bombs around that could kill someone with less effort, time, and blood) into her hand. Clearly, she was some sort of twenty year old general (who looked sixteen) with no prior military experience who "just knew how" to be the best general in Guardia. She seemed to be invulnerable as well, seeing as how she wasn't even wearing body armor.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Marle demanded, seeing her fiancé slip into speechless mode.

"I am Mary Sue Trixina T'Shondra Alycyn Raven Tristina Candy Britny Cadice Asuka Guardia the First, your twin and the rightful heir to the Guardian throne," the woman said dramatically, flipping her thick hair back. "You will go no further, I must take you in to end this reign of terror, Sister! For I am your twin who was lost at birth! I remembered none of it until I found this pendant that is identical to yours. It all came back to me... I was the rightful heir to the throne. Father loved me best. You sold me off as a slave to the Porreans for twenty pieces of gold. I instantly became married to the mayor of Porre because I was the fairest in the town. I remembered naught but that I came from Guardia, and I loved one man, a man with spiky red hair and a sword. I could not remember his name! After a while, I was abused by my husband. Broken and depressed, and not remembering anything, even my own name-" (_Can't blame her for not remembering that name, _Marle thought grumpily) "-I reached Guardia. I was persecuted for my skin color, and they said I was a heretic. I denied these claims, and they tried to kill me, being the evil subordinates of a corrupt government. I begged them to see the light and spare me, and they did. They turned against the emperor, and I became the leader of the band of rebels, even though I had not picked up a sword in many years. It came naturally to me, however. I defeated the former emperor, our father, and now I will defeat you, Sister! and then I shall wed the man you call your husband, making ME the Empress!"

"Right," Marle said, and abruptly shot Mary with a rifle that had been lying a few feet away. "I'll keep that in mind." Marle shot the freak again for good measure, and she and Crono trampled the dead body as they ran after Lucca, who now had a three minute lead.

"What was all that about?" Crono asked as they ran toward Lucca's house.

"Dunno, but it was seriously unnerving," Marle said with a shudder. "She _was_ a Mary Sue, after all..."

They ran through a few battlefields and mercifully escaped with only a few scrapes (and in Crono's case, bruised balls). Finally, they reached Lucca's house.

Or the place it should have been, anyway.

It was now a large testing center for powerful weaponry used by the Guardian Empire. How did they know this? Why, there was a large sign out front that said "THIS IS A LARGE TESTING CENTER FOR POWERFUL WEAPONRY USED BY THE GUARDIAN EMPIRE." Duh.

"Well, this is just a really crappy situation," Lucca commented as soon as the couple joined her. "Where've you been?"

"We ran into Marle's sister," Crono explained.

"You have a sister?" Lucca asked, raising an eyebrow.

Marle shrugged. "I wouldn't use that in the present tense, but yeah. Apparently. Her name was Mary Sue..." Marle screwed up her eyes in thought. "T'Shondra... Gertrude... Hemingway... Parker... Meh, something overly long."

"Empress Nadia!" A guard came out of the testing facility. "What are you doing here? It's too dangerous, the rebel scum are looking for you!"

"We noticed," Crono said dryly.

"Emperor Crono!" The guard looked relieved. "Well, if you were with her, it's okay. Hey, come on in, you look tired. And Lucca? Could have sworn you were just in the back room a second ago."

"It's a long story," Lucca said, following the couple inside. "And one I really don't want to explain. So, do you have anything here that will enable us to build a time machine?"

The guard thought for a minute. "I thought you were building one already."

"Yeah, um, I have suddenly gotten amnesia. Can you bring me to my work space?" Lucca asked. "I seem to have forgotten where my work space is."

"Oh, certainly!" The guard beamed and led the way.

"Morons..." Marle muttered. "This must be some alternate dimension. I would never be so stupid as to hire these idiots. I could be my 'twin sister' and they'd just lead me right to the weapons."

"Yeah, well, what do you think is going on?" Lucca asked under her breath. "This is illogical. None of our actions in the past could have made this big an impact, right?"

"I bet it's an alternate dimension," Marle whispered back. "No way I was even the _slightest_ bit related to that blonde moron who thought she was Miss Wonderful."

"Here we are!" Mr. Moronic announced, opening the door. "This is your workspace, Miss Lu-" He stopped. He looked in the room. He thought for a moment. He looked at the floor. He opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He did a series of other stupid things and finally got his train of thought together. "Wait. Miss Lucca, why are you in there AND out here?"

"Think fast," Lucca said, and promptly whacked the guard upside the head with a nearby hammer. He slumped to the floor, unconscious.

The Lucca in the room looked at the trio with some alarm, which was quickly replaced with a look of cool boredom. "How'd you get in?"

"Captain Moron here led us right to you," the Lucca in the hall said. "Mind if we come in?"

The Lucca in the room shrugged. "Whatever. Just explain who you are, how you got here, and why you're here in the first place."

Crono cleared his throat and closed the door behind them. "Well, you know who we are-"

"Empress Nadia and Emperor Crono, yeah," the Lucca said dismissively, shoving several wires together and stuffing them haphazardly into the thing she was making. "Why are you here? And who's she?"

Lucca frowned. "I'm you. Well, a different you. Do you think the strands of time have twisted, forming a future far different from what it was supposed to be? You know, an alternate future?"

The other Lucca looked like Lucca was speaking in tongues. "_What_ are you _talking_ about?"

"Well, see, after the three of us fell through the Gate the second time because of his cat, we kind of messed around and did stuff we shouldn't have, but we didn't expect the future to be so... You don't get it."

The other Lucca shook her head. "Listen, I'm busy making a time machine. If you're going to stand there and babble on about gates and alternate futures, you can get the hell away from me."

"They speak the truth," a voice under the table said in a deep voice.

Crono peered under the table. "Son of a-!"

Mr. Tinkles popped out. "You half-assed dickhead. Almost left me alone with those homicidal lunatics in the past, did you?"

"It talked!" Lucca moaned. "This is all some freakishly horrendous nightmare, that's what it is..."

The cat scoffed. "Just because I fell into a vat of some strange liquid that allows me to speak human doesn't make me a freak, you dumbass freaks."

Crono rounded on the other Lucca. "What is this? Why? WHY?"

The other Lucca shrugged again. "That's the animal testing division, don't blame me."

---

It was late at night. The other Lucca had gone home (wherever her home was) and Crono, Marle, and Lucca had been shoved into a small room at the testing lab. (Marle had objected to this, she was, after all, the Empress.) Two male guards stood outside the door, comparing notes on dick sizes and the best women to lay. Or something like that. Hey, they're men. No offense.

Lucca paced the room. "We've got to figure a way out of here," she mused. "But then we wouldn't know where to go. Hey!" she exclaimed suddenly. "We have to interrogate your cat, Crono."

Crono giggled weirdly. "That sounded funny."

Lucca smacked him in the back of the head with a randomly placed rusty metal pipe. "Shut it. Where is the little yellow fuzzball?"

Crono didn't answer. Either he didn't know, or Lucca had whacked his head harder than she'd thought.

"Heeeeeeeeere, kitty, kitty, kitty..." Lucca sang, clicking her tongue. "I have some 'nummy treats for you..."

No response from the cat.

"It's pie?"

Still no response.

"The pie is also evil," Lucca added.

Mr. Tinkles shot out from the air vent. "Evil pie! Sweet ass! Gimme my pie, biznatch!"

Lucca caught the yellow furball and stuffed him in a nearby cage. "I, Lucca the Wonderful, have captured you. Now say you'll do whatever I tell you to."

Mr. Tinkles glared at her.

"Okay..." Lucca grabbed a bucket of water. "Say you'll do whatever I tell you to or you drown."

"Fine!" Tinkles yelled. "What do you want?"

Lucca told him.

"You are the EPITOME of EVIL!" Tinkles yelped.

"Aren't I?" Lucca said sweetly. "Now you'll do it, Tinkle King, or this bucket of icy water will be home to your _face_."

Tinkles whimpered.

---

Lucca talked to Crono about her plan. Crono, of course, strongly disliked her plan.

"_Four _White Mages? It'll never work."

Clearly, there had been some sort of problem with the sound waves on the way to Crono's nearly microscopic brain.

Lucca repeated her plan, this time using flash cards and interesting gestures.

Crono got it this time.

"Let's get one thing straight. I'm not."

Pause.

"No, wait. That's not what I was going to say."

Lucca waited.

"I'm not going to do that," Crono amended.

"Yes you are," Lucca said smugly. "If you don't, I'll _slip _and show MArle those embarassing pictures of you at my thirteenth bithday party."

Crono's screams of horror echoed through the facility.

---

The guards (who shall be named Bob and Tim) couldn't believe their luck. The woman had hardly anything on, she was built (more muscles than a woman should have, but beggars can't be choosers), and her hair was a wild red. A wild, _sexy _red.

"So..." Tim said, flashing a grin at the woman who looked as pissed as anyone who was forced into high heels, a mini-skirt, and a tube top could be. "You're so hot, I bet chairs have orgasms when you sit on them."

Inwardly, the woman groaned. That innuendo was worse than the love torpedo one. _Why did they have to be perverts? _she wondered. _Why couldn't they be normal guys? Oh, wait. They're guys. That's it, then._

"Oh, yes," the woman simpered, even though her lips were mouthing "fuck you, jackass" and her eyes were twitching. "All the time."

Bob smoothed his balding head. "Nice outfit. It would look better on my bedroom floor, though."

"That sounds wonderful," the woman grinned forcedly, her mouth forming the words "I'll kill you if you even _try _it, fucktard."

I bet you're wondering why this woman isn't saying what she's mouthing. It's quite simple, really. Ventriloquism.

Tinkles was hiding in the air vent, doing all the talking, and the woman was really Crono the cross dresser talking to the perverts on the floor. Crono's goal was to get the guards to give him a tour of the building while Lucca snuck out and went to the lab to build a machine to get them back in the correct dimension.

Crono wondered how long he could continue this before he snapped and stuck a sword through the guards' innards. He estimated three minutes. Well, two minutes now. He wondered briefly if he could survive that long. Or if they could survive that long before his sword "slipped" through their long intestines.

All he could do was nod and smile.

Mr. Tinkles was not helping. He was making Crono say stuff like "well, this one guy was four inches, he was horrid-" and "_real _women ride twenty inches." Crono almost blurted "shut the fuck up, you piece of shit!" but resisted. For the sake of the mission.

Finally, Tinkles got to the point. "Would you like to escort me around this lovely facility?" (Crono actually mouthed "would you like to die a slow and painful death, you stupid cat?")

"Yeah!" Tim said excitedly.

The two guards abandoned their posts to escort Crono around, showing him everything from oddly shaped screws (no innuendo intended... well, maybe a little one) to the peach-colored walls.

Lucca slipped out, rushed down the hall to the lab, bypassed the securtiy with ease, and slipped into the lab, locking the door behind her.

Crono snapped.

A minute later, a disgruntled Crono knocked on the door to the lab, wiping blood off his sword and rubbing makeup off. He had masterfully changed into his normal clothes in less than ten seconds. He's amazing, what can I say.

"Never again," Crono warned when the door locked behind him again. "Ever. I swear, if you so much as _suggest _cross-dressing as a diversion again, _your_ innards will be splattered throughout the cafeteria. And then I'll dance on your grave. No jury would convict me."

"Duly noted," Lucca said, shoving on a face guard. "Stand back, these torch wielders can get pretty nasty."

"Lucca, that's not a torch wielder, that's a flame-"

He was cut off by the massive wave of fire that filled the area.

"-thrower. Great." He patted his sleeve to put the fire out. "You're a really insane pyromaniac, Lucca."

"Thank you."

---

Marle read the note sitting on her desk with mild interest. Until she realized what her husband-to-be was doing. Then she laughed her head off.

"Crono the Cross-Dresser. I like it."

She waltzed out the door, ignoring the trail of blood leading to the lab. She was expecting that blood anyway.

---

"There." Lucca stood back and admired her work. "This should get us to the End of Time."

"What if the End of Time was wiped out when the-"

"Shut up and let me marvel in my work _before_ you point out the obvious flaws," Lucca interrupted.

Crono shut up, but wondered briefly if Lucca was going to nearly kill them all again. The reason it was briefly was becasue Marle had walked in, and she was wearing her night clothes. _Damn_ she looked hot in her night clothes. They'd look better on his bedroom fl- NO! NO, he mustn't think the way Bob and Tim do - did - or he'd end up dead. Possibly with a sword impaled in his large intestine, small intestine, liver, spleen, stomach, and several smaller organs that he didn't know existed but were there anyway, despite their apparent uselessness.

Lucca sighed. "Alright, point out the flaws."

"For one, how do you know this thing'll get us anywhere at all? The End of Time was connected to the world by the gates, right?"

"It could still be there," Lucca said smartly. "Just unconnected to the world. This little baby should get us to the-"

"That's my second point," Crono said. "That 'should' part. Every time you've said 'this should work,' we've ended up in either mortal danger or nearly dead."

"He's got a valid point," Marle added.

"We won't know until we try, right?" Lucca commented, and proceeded to press the large red button.

"Wait, I wasn't-"

_A trip through the strands of space later (which took approximately 6.2 nanoseconds)..._

"-finished. You suck."

A bird cawed. Water wooshed. People bustled around the marketplace that the three had suddenly appeared in. A sign said "Welcome to Guardia, the Best Place in the World to Live." The sun shone brightly upon them.

"Damn, didn't work," Lucca said, frowning at her machine. "Let's try again-"

"NO!" Marle and Crono yelled.

Lucca's finger hesitated over the button. "Why? We're not at the End of Time, clearly it didn't work-"

"We're back in Guardia!" Crono yelled. "OUR Guardia!"

Lucca narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and she grabbed the nearest passerby. "What year is it?"

"What interdimensional hyperspace did YOU leap off?" the woman sneered nastily.

Lucca pulled her gun out. "You have until my finger pulls the trigger to answer my question."

"1004 A.D.," the woman said immediately.

"Who's the king?"

"King Guardia..."

"The?"

"I don't know!" the woman wailed. "Don't kill me!"

"Is Crono Triggare an idiot?"

"Yes," the woman choked out. "Really big."

"Is Lucca Ashtear a genuis?"

"Yes."

"_What_ is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

"What?"

"Just testing you."

Throughout this conversation, Spekkio had appeared to Crono and Marle and apologized for the inconvienience. Apparently, he had accidentally sent them into an alternate future, true to Lucca's hypothesis. He vanished after promising that he would personally blow up any time machine that Lucca tried to build at any point afterwords. Crono and Marle rejoiced.

Finally, Lucca let the traumatized woman go, and nodded at the nearest Bank of Guardia. "Let's ask for assistance from these people, they'll be intelligent."

She walked in, stood on a chair, and held her hands up in the air.

"Alright, nobody move. I need your total cooperation."

She then realized she'd forgotten that her gun was in her hand. Damn, now they were going to think she was ready to kill them. Or rob the bank. Or both. Or whether or not they'd left the sprinklers on. But mostly the first two.

Everyone screamed, and dropped to the ground, sobbing. The Guardian guards advanced on Lucca.

"Shit."

---

Fortunately for Lucca, Marle decided that she wanted Lucca to be her Maiden of Honor at the wedding, and Lucca got to get out of jail for that occasion. Crono had objected to this, stating that Lucca was everything BUT honorable. Marle stuffed a slice of lemon pie into Crono's face and insisted. Crono gave in, partly because he was starting to go into shock. That's when he found out he was allergic to lemon. But I digress.

The day of the wedding arrived. Marle was getting ready, Lucca was trying to figure out how to walk in her heels, and Crono was in his own room, writing his vows. Mr. Tinkles stole the vows and replaced them when Crono wasn't looking.

_At the wedding..._

It was a beautiful day. The wedding took place near the ocean, and pretty much everyone in Guardia was there. There was an orchestra playing some sappy love song, and Crono's mom was in tears.

"Now _I _have to feed his cats!" she wailed, blowing her nose while the king patted her awkwardly on the back.

The music changed to the traditional "Here Comes the Bride," and everybody became silent.

Marle walked down the aisle. Her white dress was large and flowing (hey, I can't describe a dress to save my life, people), with a long white veil covering her somewhat anxious face. Most people thought she was thinking about why she was wearing a dress. Her exact thoughts:

He'd better not screw this up. I'll kill him.

She smiled and waved as she walked, also wondering why the hell the aisle was so damn long. The heels were murdering her. And the dress itched like hell.

Crono waited at the marble altar, his hands in his pockets. His fingers ran over the paper he'd prepared with his vows on it. Mr. Tinkles grinned evilly from his spot on Crono's mom's lap.

"Dearly beloved," the priest began in a monotone. "We gather here today..."

Mr. Tinkles hopped down from his spot on Crono's mom's lap and walked over to the orchestra, who were all staring intently at the couple on the altar. Because of their intent focus, they didn't notice Tinkles replace the couple's wedding song music sheets with a song of his choice. Pleased with himself, the evil cat trotted back to his spot and settled back down.

"And now, would the bride read the vows?" the priest droned.

Marle cleared her throat. "Piss me off, and I kill you. I love you, sweetie. I was quite sad when you died the first time, I would hate for it to happen again."

The audience was dumbfounded by this simple vow.

"Would... would the groom?" the priest stammered.

Crono looked at his paper. "Um... dearest Marle. I really think you're hot. I mean, all those times I saved the world's butt, you were there with me. And I wanted to grip _your_ butt firmly and-" He froze, shook his head, and skipped ahead. "I think it would be really awesome if we could liven up this shindig by publicly displaying our undying affection for one another through acts of sexual inter-"

Marle's eye was twitching, and Crono wiped his forehead. "Well, this doesn't look like my vows, mine were uncharacteristically sappy..." He bit his lip. "Anyway. I want to have lots of kids. And we should definitely name one after my cat, who is the coolest bastard this side of the universe."

Everyone looked at Mr. Tinkles, who purred, who was apparently pleased with himself.

"You die, Tinkle King," Crono snarled, crushing the paper in his fist and reaching for his sword as Lucca stifled a giggle. "You switched my vows with vows of your own evil design, didn't you? Yeah, you're a bastard all right - a JACKASS BASTARD WHO IS ABOUT TO DIE!" He brandished his sword and stuck it in the air.

"Crono, please!" his mother said indignantly. "He's a CAT! He can't write vows for you!"

Everyone delcared Crono insane and the ceremony went on without much incident.

Until the post-wedding party, when the orchestra's director signaled for the orchestra to play the wedding song.

After hearing the first three notes of the song, Marle nearly strangled Crono.

"Why the HELL did you tell the orchestra to play 'I am in love with a stripper'?" Marle shrieked, hurling her champagne bottle at Crono's head (fortunately, she was well on her way to being drunk, so it missed his head). "Our wedding song is 'Have I told you lately that I love you'!"

Crono whimpered. "I didn't do it, honey, I swear!"

Crono's mom sighed happily, seeing her new daughter-in-law chase Crono around the wedding site, waving her crossbow as Crono sang "Have I told you lately that I love you" in a frantic voice.

"They're going to be happy together, Mr. Tinkles," Crono's mom said.

Mr. Tinkles meowed.

"Yes. At least they won't get old, they'll kill each other first." Crono's mom stretched her legs and smiled as Marle buried Crono's head in the fountain of lemonade. "Let's go home."

---**_End_**---

_Finished! Yay! Please review, come on, it's the end of the fic. And sorry if this fic had spelling problems, I try to catch them since I don't have a word processer - I'm stuck with MS Wordpad, and it doesn't have spell check. Anyway, please stay tuned to any CT fics I'll have in the future, I have one that I'm working on already - not a humor one, though. Sorry. But PLEASE review. Or you make me a sad person. D;_


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